Are You Ready?
by Don Sample
Summary: Willow's Spell calls a new Slayer in Colorado Springs.
1. Part I

**Are You Ready?**

**Part I**

Cassandra Fraiser felt a wave of dizziness. The equation she had just written into the test booklet on the desk in front of her blurred. She closed her eyes, and rubbed the heels of her hands against them. Staying up half the night, studying for this math exam, might not have been the best way to prepare for it, after all. She heard a voice, distant and echoing, as if the speaker was at the far end of a long tunnel: "Are you ready to be strong?"

'Of course I am,' thought Cassie. After everything she'd been through she thought she was already pretty strong. She'd survived when everyone else on her planet was killed by the Goa'uld. She'd made a new life for herself here on Earth, with a new family, and friends. She was more than ready.

The dizziness passed. Cassie looked around, trying to identify the speaker of those words, but she saw no one but her classmates, hunched over their desks, writing away. Everything was sharply focused now. She could hear the scratching of pencils on paper. She could smell the rubber from the guy, two rows up, who was wearing a hole in the page as he erased an answer for the third time. She felt that she was being watched, and looked toward the teacher, who was staring at her now, with a frown on her face.

'Right,' thought Cassie. 'Eyes on my own paper.' She looked back down at the exam that, a few seconds earlier, had been threatening to put her to sleep. She felt fully awake and aware now. She went back to work on the problem in front of her. She was already three quarters of the way through the test, in half of the time allotted for it. She figured she'd be able to get it finished, read it over to make sure she hadn't made any stupid mistakes, and still be done soon enough to get out of here fifteen minutes early. She pressed her pencil against the page, to write down the next step to solution to the problem.

The lead broke.

* * *

Cassie didn't get home as early as she'd hoped. Her pencil had kept breaking all through the rest of the exam, and she had to spend time sharpening it, but she was feeling good as she entered her house. She was pretty sure that she'd aced the exam, which would please her mother, and she felt energized by the bike ride home. She had always been in good physical shape, but she had made today's ride in record time. She had almost felt like she was flying on her bicycle.

Her foster mother wasn't home yet. She wouldn't be getting off duty at the base until five, and it would take her another half hour just to clear herself through all the security. Cassie didn't expect to see her until nearly six. She still had lots of time before she had to start making dinner.

The light was flashing on the phone to indicate that there were messages waiting. Cassie quickly skipped over a couple from telemarketers, until she heard her mother's voice. "Hi Cassie. It looks like I'm going to be held late at the base. Nothing for you to worry about, I should be home later tonight, but it looks like you're on your own for dinner. It's still okay for you to go out with your friends tonight. You'll have to let me know how your math final went when you get home. Have fun, and try to stay out of trouble. I still want you home by midnight. Bye!"

Janet Fraiser had sounded a little rushed, but not harried, so Cassie didn't think that it could be too serious. Probably just that SG-1 had come back from a mission with their usual collection of scrapes and contusions, but nothing life threatening. Her mom not coming home meant that she could order a pizza, and not have to listen to a lecture on proper nutrition.

* * *

Cassie got home about ten minutes after midnight. She hoped her mother was in a good mood. She had been half hoping that she wouldn't be home yet, but she'd seen her mother's car in the driveway as she approached the house.

Dr. Fraiser was in the living room, watching TV: something that surprised Cassie a bit. Her mother didn't watch much television. She saw the CNN logo in the corner of the screen, over top of some talking heads. "Hi Mom. What's up?"

"Hmm?" Her mother looked away from the television. "Just seeing if there was any more news about what happened in California this afternoon." She looked at the time. "You're a little late."

"Uh, yeah, sorry," said Cassie. "We lost track of the time, a bit." She decided to try for a distraction. "So, any more news? I heard that there weren't nearly as many casualties as they first thought." The earthquake that had destroyed the town of Sunnydale was big news—big enough that even a group of kids celebrating the end of the school year had spent some time talking about it.

"Apparently the town was mostly evacuated, before it happened," said Janet. "We're still trying to figure out why."

"The SGC is involved?" asked Cassie. "You think that this might be because of…" She tipped her eyes up toward the roof. "Anything I should be worrying about?" They never talked openly about what Dr. Fraiser did inside Cheyenne Mountain, even when they were alone together in the house. That made it less likely that they would slip, and say something that they shouldn't in front of anyone else.

"There were some concerns," said Janet, "but we haven't found anything to indicate that we need to worry. Colonel O'Neill and his team were sent to California anyway, to have a look. Just in case."

Cassie looked back at the TV. The image had changed. It now showed an aerial shot of a gigantic crater. Cassie knew that it couldn't be live: the sun had set in California hours ago. From the length of the shadows she judged that what she was watching was shot shortly before sunset. The bottom of the enormous hole was lost in the shadows. The voiceover from the commentator confirmed her evaluation. "This was the scene, just four hours ago," he was saying. "You can see the beginning of the collapse of the south-western rim of the crater." The camera zoomed in on a section of the crater wall. "The first trickles of water can be seen seeping from cracks, eroding the rock. They look small in this picture, but remember that what you are seeing here is a mile across. Some of these 'trickles' are torrents that would wash a house away in seconds. If you watch carefully you can see bits of rock, some of them ten or twenty feet across, being carried away." Circles highlighted dark specks falling away with the wisps of the waterfalls that dropped into the darkness. They seemed to be moving in slow motion, but that was an illusion created by the immense scale. "And here we see the critical failure," said the commentator. "A section of the wall, nearly a quarter mile across, collapses, and the Pacific Ocean begins to pour in." Again, what Cassie was watching seemed to be happening in slow motion. A large section of the rim fell away, carried by a cataract of white water. "We estimate that the initial flow rate was nearly that of Niagara Falls, and it grew quickly. More water than is carried by ten Mississippi Rivers is pouring into that crater as we speak. The noise level at the scene is deafening. Even at this rate, scientists are predicting that it will take several days for the crater to completely fill with water." The torrent was growing, even as Cassie watched. The camera panned down, following the falling water. The initial drop of the waterfall was several hundred feet, until the water crashed into the slope of broken rock at the foot of the cliff. Mist rose from it, obscuring the base of the falls, but the river of water continued to flow away down the slope.

"Wow!" said Cassie. Words seemed completely inadequate to describe what she was seeing.

Janet grinned. "To quote Teal'c: 'Indeed!'"

The images of the huge waterfall were replaced by a panel of geologists and other scientists, all giving conflicting theories on what had taken place. It was pretty clear that no one had any idea how the Sunnydale crater had really formed.

"So, you're sure that you-know-who had nothing to do with this?" asked Cassie. "How could something like that be _natural_?"

"Yes, after long consideration, we are absolutely sure that Lord Voldemort had nothing to do with the destruction of Sunnydale," said Janet Fraiser.

"_Mo-om!_" said Cassie, in the aggravated tone that only a sixteen year old girl could produce. "You know what I meant."

"Yes, I know," said Janet. "And we're as sure as we can be, for the moment. All of the usual suspects seem to be accounted for, doing what they do, in other places. Like I said, we've sent SG-1 to look things over, just in case, but at the moment it looks like this is something that is completely outside of the SGC's jurisdiction. Now, tell me about your day? How was the math exam?"

"I think I pretty much aced it," said Cassie.

"Good," said Janet. "You need good math grades, if you want to study any of the sciences in university."

"I've still got a year before I have to worry about that," said Cassie.

"Not really," said her mother. "You have to make your course selections for next year soon, and they'll be based on what you want to study at university, and your SATs are in the fall."

"That's still months away," said Cassie. "Lots of time to worry about it later."

"Less than you think, young lady," said Janet. "But you're right, we don't have to make any decisions tonight." She yawned. "Oh, sorry, but it's been a long day. Let's go to bed." She picked up the remote for the TV, and turned it off.

"Okay. G'night Mom." Cassie gave Janet a quick kiss on her cheek, before going upstairs to her bedroom.

* * *

Cassie's sleep was troubled by dreams. Dreams of monsters, and girls fighting monsters. One dream in particular repeated over and over: a horde of creatures in a vast cavern attacking a small band of about thirty girls. The creatures reminded her of something out of that movie _Shadow of the Vampire_, but the vast numbers of them were more like a scene from _The Two Towers_. What was more amazing was the way the girls fought. They had a strength and a skill like nothing she had ever seen before. They beat back the horde until it was destroyed by a blinding flash of light.

She was surprised that she felt as rested as she did when the morning came. She didn't have to get up—she was done with school for the year, and Sam was away, so she wouldn't be stopping by in the middle of her morning jog for Cassie to join her—but when she heard her mom moving around, she decided to get up anyway to join her for breakfast.

Her mother gave her a concerned look when she entered the kitchen. "Are you feeling alright?" she asked. "With Sam out of town, I expected you to sleep till noon, and I heard you cry out in your sleep a few times last night." She came over and placed a hand on Cassie's forehead to feel her temperature.

"I'm fine Mom," said Cassie, as she dropped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster. "In fact, I feel great. Just had some weird dreams." Ever since the incident with Nirrti's retrovirus last year, Dr. Fraiser tended to be a little over-cautious where Cassandra's health was concerned. If Cassie so much as sneezed, Janet wanted to take her into the Mountain to run tests.

"Your temperature feels okay, but you tell me right away if you start noticing any symptoms," said Dr. Fraiser.

"I will, Mom," said Cassie, determined to keep any symptoms that she might start feeling to herself. She busied herself getting the rest of her breakfast ready, while she waited for her toast. She poured herself a glass of orange juice, and got the strawberry jam out of the fridge.

"So, what were you dreaming about?"

"I don't really remember," Cassie shrugged, "just that it was weird stuff." Her toast popped up, and she went to work buttering it, and then applying a thick layer of jam. She put the lid back on the jar when she was done, being sure to close it firmly. Her mother tended to be a bit of a neat freak—Cassie figured that that came with her being a doctor—and she abhorred a jar with a loose lid.

Janet put a couple of slices of bread into the toaster for herself. "What are your plans for the day?"

Cassie washed the toast in her mouth down with with a sip of orange juice. "Nothing much. Go for a run, head over to Debbie's to hang out, maybe go to the mall."

"Have you considered looking for a summer job?" asked Janet.

Cassie looked at her. "A job?"

"Sure, give you some extra spending money, and colleges like to see things like that in your application, or maybe you could find some volunteer work?"

"Can I at least have a couple of days to enjoy my summer vacation?" asked Cassie.

"I'll give you a little time before I chuck you out in the street." Janet grinned at Cassie. Her toast popped up, and she quickly moved the hot slices to her plate. She spread butter over them, and reached for the jar of strawberry jam. She twisted the lid. Nothing happened. She tried again, harder. The lid wouldn't budge. "What did you do to this?"

"Nothing," said Cassie. "I didn't put it on that tight."

"You must have done something to it." Janet got up and went to the drawer to look for a jar opener.

Cassie picked up the jar, and gave the lid a twist. It came open easily. "Uh, Mom?" She held up the jar and lid. "I guess you must have loosened it for me."


	2. Part II

**Part II**

Cassie noticed other strange things over the next month that she kept to herself. She wasn't getting any more than three or four hours of sleep a night, and what sleep she did get was haunted by the same dreams. She wasn't feeling tired because of it, though. She felt full of energy. She was stronger, and she could run faster, and farther than she had before. Sam commented on that a few times, on the mornings that Cassie had been able to join her in her runs. It used to be that Cassie had to work to keep up with Sam, even though Sam had already run a mile before she joined her. Now it was Sam who was having to work harder to keep up with the younger girl, and Cassie knew that she could run a lot faster, if she wanted to: she was holding herself back. They changed their routine so that instead of Sam running the mile to Cassie's home first, they'd meet about half way in between. No one really thought much about it. Cassie had always been active, and everyone attributed her new speed and endurance to her maturing body. Cassie kept most of her thoughts about Sam's age starting to catch up with her, to herself.

Cassie was also feeling restless at night, like she needed to be outside. She would often sneak out of the house after her mother had gone to sleep, or on the nights when she was held at the base. She'd wander around the neighbourhood, feeling like she was looking for something, though she had no idea what. She just knew that she would recognize it, when she found it, but she never did. She felt drawn to a couple of cemeteries that were within a couple of miles of her home, and spent many nights roaming between the headstones in the dark.

Her senses were sharper now: she could see better, especially at night; her hearing had improved; she seemed to be aware of everything around her, from insects and rodents hiding in the grass, to larger animals like racoons and skunks in the bushes.

* * *

Cassie still hadn't told anyone about the changes she felt in herself when July came around. The SGC had a picnic on the long weekend for its off-duty personnel, and their families. Several of them had taken over a baseball diamond in the park that they were using, for a friendly little game. Jack was having fun explaining the rules to Teal'c and Jonas.

Cassie was playing left field. She adjusted the Toronto Blue Jays cap she was wearing to keep the sun out of her eyes as she watched Teal'c step into the batter's box. She, and the rest of the outfield, moved farther back.

Sam was on the pitcher's mound. She watched the sign that General Hammond—the catcher—flashed to her, nodded, and let the ball fly. Teal'c swung his bat, and there was a loud _crack!_ Cassie could see the ball sailing up into the sky. There were cheers and groans from the offensive and defensive teams, at what nearly everyone thought was sure to be a home run.

Cassie was already moving farther back into the field, while keeping her eye on the ball. She knew she could catch it. The wind knocked her cap off her head as she ran, well past the back boundary of the baseball field, out into the longer grass. She snatched the ball out of the air as it came down to her, spun, and threw it toward third base in one fluid motion.

Jack had been on third, and Cassie knew that he was jogging his way toward home. She hadn't consciously looked at him, but she had known what he, and everyone else on the field, was doing, even as she had concentrated on catching the ball. She knew that she had a good chance to catch him off base when she fired the ball off to Sergeant Siler at third.

She heard the shouts of the other players warning Jack, and saw him look around. Even from her position in the outfield she could see the surprised expression on his face. He started to sprint back toward third base, but he wasn't fast enough. She heard the ball slap into Siler's glove, and then she heard him swearing as he extracted his stinging hand from his glove, and shook it. Her throw had been right on target; Jack hadn't even been close to getting back to the base that Siler's foot had been on when he made the catch. Jack was out.

Siler was still trying to rub the feeling back into his hand. Everyone else on the defending team was cheering. Cassie was happy as she jogged her way in from the outfield, scooping up her Blue Jays cap as she passed it. The team at bat was mostly disappointed that what had looked like a sure-thing two run hit for them, had been turned into an inning ending double play. She grinned at Colonel O'Neill as she passed him. "Sorry about that, Jack!"

"Hey, don't be sorry! That was a great play!" he told her. "You ever think of trying out for the Rockies?"

She waved her cap at him. "I'm from Toronto, remember? If I try out for anyone, it'll be the Jays."

Jack grinned at her. Cassie had really taken her "from Toronto" cover story to heart. She cheered for the Blue Jays during baseball season, and the Maple Leafs during hockey season. She and Janet had visited Toronto a few times, when Janet had leave, so Cassie could have some first hand experience with the city that was supposed to be her home town. Her friends in Colorado Springs had been told that she was going back there to visit old friends.

* * *

Cassie didn't pull off any more plays as spectacular as the one that had robbed Teal'c of his home run—largely because Teal'c had hit into right field for his other turns at-bat—but she still performed flawlessly, fielding everything that came her way. She also went four-for-four in her own turns at bat. She had noticed that some people were looking at her with puzzled expressions on their faces as the game went on, so she was careful not to hit the ball too hard, after her first home run. Her other hits were little bloopers that fell into the holes in the outfield, or ground balls that scooted between the players in the infield.

By the end of the day Cassie was thinking that she should have deliberately struck out a couple of times, or missed some catches in the outfield. Her mother told her that she wanted her to come into the base the next day, so she could run a few tests.

* * *

Cassie spent most of the morning being scoped, sampled, scanned, prodded and poked by the SGC medical staff, at the end of which Dr. Fraiser could find nothing wrong with her. The only thing that she could say that was out of the ordinary was that Cassie seemed to be extraordinarily healthy.

Janet let her escape from the medical centre to join Sam, and the rest of SG-1, for lunch in the commissary. Cassie filled her tray with a salad, a club sandwich with fries, and a slice of apple pie for dessert before she went to join Jack and Sam at their table.

Jack looked over her meal. "You sure you've got enough there?" he asked.

"I think so," said Cassie. "If not, I'll just steal some of your Jell-O."

"Did Janet find anything?" asked Sam.

"Nope," said Cassie. "I'm perfectly healthy, but she isn't going to let me go, yet. She said she wants to test my strength and stamina. All because I managed to catch a fly ball."

"That was a great catch," said Jack. "A major league outfielder would have been proud of that play."

"You're just mad that I threw you out," said Cassie.

Jack grinned at her. "That too."

Cassie felt something behind her. She had first felt it yesterday: a feeling of otherness. She looked around and saw Teal'c and Jonas were on their way over to join them.

She shifted uncomfortably a bit as they sat at the table. Something seemed off about them, especially Teal'c. It wasn't anything like the feeling she used to get from him when he was still carrying his primta, but she was definitely feeling something. Jonas seemed to be giving her the same feeling, but it wasn't nearly as strong as what she was sensing from Teal'c.

Outwardly, both of them seemed to be their perfectly normal selves: Teal'c was dour, and reserved; Jonas, happy and outgoing. She really hadn't seen much of Jonas Quinn over the year that he had been with the SGC—he didn't get out of the Mountain much—but they had gotten along well the few times that they had met. They felt a certain common bond: neither of them being able to return to their home worlds.

* * *

Cassie entered the SGC gymnasium from the women's locker room, dressed in shorts, a t-shirt, and running shoes. She looked around, but didn't see her mother, or anyone else she really knew. She was aware that a couple of the guys there were giving her a good look, not that she was interested in anyone that old—they were at least twenty—or that they would do more than cast surreptitious looks at Major Fraiser's daughter.

She shrugged. Her mom had said that there was some equipment that she needed to get to run the tests that she wanted to do. Cassie walked over to an unoccupied weight machine. She had to adjust the seat height a bit before she sat down, grasped the handle and pushed it forward. She felt the resistance of the weights. They seemed a little light, but not so much that she felt the need to adjust them. She relaxed, letting the weights return to their rest position, and pushed again. She might as well get a bit of a workout before her mother got there.

Janet came into the gym, with Sam helping her push a cart loaded with medical looking machines. Sam smiled at Cassie. "Hey, looks like you decided to start without us."

"Just thought I'd get warmed up a bit, before Mom started in on me." Cassie pressed the handle forward again.

Sam moved around behind the machine. "Let's see what you're lifting here." She stopped when she saw how the machine was set. She looked back at Cassie, watching her do a couple more repetitions. She looked back at the machine. "Uh…Cassie, did you set this up?"

"Just the seat height. The weights felt about right, so I didn't change anything back there." Cassie pressed the handle forward again.

"Is there a problem?" asked Janet.

"No, no problem," said Sam. "It's just that this machine looks like it's set up for Teal'c."

Cassie let the weight crash back down. "What?"

"Something funny's going on here." Sam waved Cassie out of the seat. "Let me try that."

Cassie got up off the bench. "Go ahead."

Sam sat down, and grasped the handle. She tried to push it forward. It didn't move. She pressed harder, her muscles straining. It slowly started to move. It looked like it was taking all of her strength to press the handle forward. She lowered weights back down, and looked up at Cassie. "You haven't set this up with Colonel O'Neill, have you? A little practical joke at my expense?"

"No!" said Cassie. "You know that if I was going to try something like that, it'd be Jack sitting there, not you."

* * *

"Cassandra's strength, and endurance are far outside of normal human boundaries," Major Fraiser told the people gathered in the conference room. "We couldn't really measure how strong she is: she easily lifted the maximum weight that the machine could be set for. I didn't want to try her on the free weights: we didn't have time to rig something up do it safely. There's no one who could spot her, at the weights she was lifting.

"We had her on the treadmill, at fifteen miles per hour, for half an hour. She wasn't even breathing hard at the end of it. Her heart rate rose to 120 beats per minute while she was running, and dropped back down to 65, thirty seconds after she stopped."

"No wonder she's been running me into the ground for the last month," said Sam. "I was starting to think I was getting old."

"Have you found anything to explain why this is happening?" asked General Hammond.

"Nothing!" said Dr. Fraiser. "I've found nothing in any of the tests that I've run that could account for this. Medically, Cassie is a healthy sixteen year old girl. Nothing in the medical results can account for her performance."

"Could this be a result of Nirrti's tampering with the people of Hanka's genetics?" asked Teal'c.

"I've reviewed Dr. Jackson's notes, and the records left by SG-7," said Jonas, "and there is nothing in them about any of the Hankan people exhibiting unusual physical abilities."

"And there is no trace of Nirrti's retrovirus, or anything like it, left in Cassie's system," said Janet.

"Maybe it's something Nirrti did when she cured Cassie of the mind fever," said Sam.

"Why?" asked Jack. "Why would she do something like that? 'Out of the goodness of her heart' doesn't seem to fit."

"Indeed," said Teal'c. "That would not be the behaviour of a Goa'uld."

"Maybe she was planning to come back, once the change took effect," said Jonas.

Everyone turned toward the sharp intake of breath that they heard. Cassie had been sitting quietly at the end of the table, listening to everyone talk about her, but now her eyes had gone wide with fear.

"Hey, don't worry," said Sam. "Nirrti's dead. She can't come back."

"Are you sure?" asked Cassie. "I mean…how many times did you kill Apophis before it took?"

"We're sure, Cass," said Jack. "I triple zatted her body before we left. No one comes back from that."

"What if she told one of the other System Lords what she'd done?" asked Cassie.

"Goa'ulds: not big with the sharing," said Jack. "Even if it was Nirrti who did this to you, why would she tell anyone else about it? She wasn't on the best terms with the other System Lords, and anyone she told might get to you before she did."

"Is there anything else different?" asked General Hammond. "Other than the physical changes."

"I haven't even been able to detect any physical change that can account for her improved performance." Dr. Fraiser turned to Cassie. "Honey, why didn't you tell me about this?"

"I didn't want to get turned into a lab rat."

"Oh Cassie, you know I'd never— Oh."

"Yeah," said Cassie bitterly.

"Cassie, we'll never do anything to hurt you," said Sam. "We're just trying to figure out what's happened."

"And I'm worried about you," said Janet. "The human body just isn't designed to operate at the levels that yours seems to be."

"But you keep saying that I'm perfectly healthy!"

"The last time we saw anything even close to this…" Janet let her voice trail off.

"You're talking about Anise's armbands, aren't you," said Jack.

"The armbands introduced a virus into your systems, that greatly enhanced your strength and reflexes. Your internal organs were already starting to break down from the stress, before your immune systems negated the virus, to say nothing of the psychological effects."

"But that doesn't seem to be happening to Cassie," said Jack. He looked at her. "Right? You haven't gone and gotten into any bar fights without telling me, have you?"

"No Jack, I haven't been in any bar fights…I haven't been in any bars. I don't really feel any different from before."

"Before when?" asked Janet. "When did you first notice anything?"

"I guess it was about the end of school," said Cassie. "Remember when you started complaining that I was putting all the lids on the jars too tight?"

"Have you noticed anything else, that you haven't told me about?" asked Janet.

"Well…I haven't been sleeping much." Cassie decided to not mention her night-time excursions. "I usually end up reading half the night, but I'm not tired in the mornings, and I think my eyesight and hearing have gotten better."

"We'll have to check those," said Janet.

"Lab rat," muttered Cassie.

"No!" said Janet. "Honey, I promise you. After we're done today, we'll go back home, and you won't have to come back…not for a while anyway." She looked toward General Hammond. "Right, Sir?"

"Right, Doctor," said General Hammond. "I will want you to continue monitoring Cassandra's health, but you can do that at home. No need to bring her back in, unless there is some other change."


	3. Part III

**Part III**

Xander drove south along Highway 115 from Colorado Springs. Faith sat beside him with a map and a compass. The compass wasn't pointing north: it was pointing south-west. Willow had charmed it so that it pointed to the new Slayer that they were tracking down. Faith checked the direction shown on the compass against her map. "I've got a bad feeling about this, Xan."

"What's the problem?"

"It's looking to me like this thing is pointing at an Air Force base."

Xander could see the mountain off to the right, that seemed to have a forest of radio antennae growing from the top of it. "Cheyenne Mountain?" he asked.

"That's the one," said Faith. "Why does that sound familiar?"

"Ever see the movie _War Games_?"

"Do I look like Andrew to you?"

"The fact that you know to ask that question, is itself incriminating," said Xander.

"Okay…yeah I've seen it. That's the one where the computer tries to start a nuclear war, right?"

"Yeah," said Xander. "And that computer was inside Cheyenne Mountain. It's home to NORAD." He nodded at the highway sign that they were passing, warning that the exit for NORAD Road was one mile ahead. "Are you sure that's where she is?"

"No," said Faith. "It looks like there's a residential area, just this side of there that she could be in, but how much do you wanna bet?"

"How do we get there?" asked Xander.

"The residential area? We should have gotten off at the last exit."

* * *

After an hour of driving around, checking the direction that their compass was pointing them from various locations, they had confirmed that their Slayer was indeed inside the Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station, but they couldn't get close enough to determine if she was actually inside the mountain, or in one of the many surface buildings surrounding the tunnel entrance. Xander found a place to park their car, just off NORAD Road, well outside the perimeter of the Air Force base. He was still a little nervous about it. Someone was bound to take notice of anyone who parked there for too long.

"Let me see that map," he said to Faith. She handed it over to him. He looked at it for a moment. "Okay, Willow had her located up here." He pointed to an area circled in the north-western section of the city. "Near this Garden of the Gods place, plus or minus a mile or two, not down here, over ten miles away. I don't think she could have missed by that much."

"So, she wasn't here when Willow did the spell," said Faith.

"Which means that maybe she's just visiting," said Xander.

"You don't think another operation like that Initiative thing found her, do you?"

"I hope not. I mean, why would the Air Force be running an operation like that? And if they were, why put it in the middle of NORAD?"

"You think she might actually be _in_ the Air Force?"

"It's possible." Xander refolded the map, and gave it back to her. "Some of the new Slayers could be in their twenties. That's old enough that she might have enlisted out of high school, be done with her basic training, and been assigned to something like this…or she could be in the Air Force Academy. It's not far from Willow's target area."

"So, we just wait here and see if she comes out?" asked Faith.

"For a little while at least." Xander checked his watch, it was nearly 5PM. "We'll give her an hour, anyway. Any longer and we're bound to have someone asking us why we're parked here."

"And if someone does ask, what do we tell 'em?" asked Faith.

Xander gave her a lop-sided grin. "Why, we just pulled into a nice place to enjoy the view, and make out a bit."

Faith slid across the seat to him. "If anyone does come by, we want to make it look good for them."

Xander shifted uncomfortably. "Faith, you know I was kidding about the making out."

"Relax, Xander. I'm not going to molest you, not that I'd object if you decided to start anything."

"Faith—"

She poked his ribs. "I said, 'Relax, Xander.' This is just for show, remember?"

"Right." Xander stretched out his arm along the back of the seat, behind her head.

"You missed the yawn," said Faith.

"What?"

"You know, the classic move in the movie theatre: the guy yawns, and stretches his arms, and just happens to put one down along the back of his girl's seat."

"But we both know that we're just pretending here," said Xander.

"Well, one of us is, anyway."

"Faith—"

"You are _so_ easy!"

"Hey! I resemble that remark!"

"I'm just kidding," said Faith. "You're the only guy who's ever wanted to just be my friend, without any strings attached. I screwed that up, last time. I'm not planning to do it again."

"So now you're giving me the 'I just wanna be friends' speech?" asked Xander. "Do you have any idea what that does to a guy's ego?"

"I already told you: I won't object if you want to start anything." Faith wiggled a bit against him.

Xander kept his arm up on the back of the seat. "I think we'd better stick with the 'just friends.'"

"That's fine by me."

"So…never had any guy friends?" asked Xander. "What about Robin?"

"I'd known him for about 24 hours, and had two conversations with him, before we jumped into bed together," said Faith. "That relationship was all about getting laid…for pretty much both of us. I _had_ spent the previous three years in jail, after all. Robin was a gentleman about it—which was pretty new for me—but once we got past the sex—which was great—we really have nothing in common. So, how'd you make out in the pool?"

"Pool?" asked Xander.

"Slayer hearing, remember?" asked Faith. "I knew about the pool. So tell me: Who won the 'How long until Faith and Robin break up' pool?"

"Uh…Dawn actually. She's the only one who thought you'd last longer than a week."

"Well, she's still young, and a bit of a romantic," said Faith. "How much did she win?"

"Fifty bucks."

"So, what do we do if it turns out that she's in the Air Force?"

"I don't know," said Xander. "That could be almost as bad as them knowing about her. She might like it there, and we can't just pull her out. That's the sort of crap that the old Council used to pull on the Potentials. We've thought about what we'll do when Riley's people find out about all the Slayers now, and decide they want to try to recruit a few. Having a Slayer already _in_ the military isn't something that we'd even considered."

"If she wants out?" asked Faith.

"If they don't want to let her out…I suppose we could have Willow do for her, what she did for you. Change all their records so that they have different pictures, fingerprints, and stuff for her. Then set her up with a new identity."

"If she's got friends and family, she might not want to go for something like that," said Faith. "It was easy for me. No one from my past I ever want to see again. She might like her life."

Xander made a non-committal "Hmm" noise, and settled back to wait. They'd jump off that bridge when they came to it. He thought about what had brought him and Faith to the side of this road in Colorado.

The initial euphoria that most of them had felt after surviving the battle in Sunnydale hadn't lasted long. Too many people had died giving them that victory. Anya, Amanda, and nearly a dozen of the other new Slayers hadn't made it. They had all lost people that they were close to.

The bus had gotten them only a couple of miles down the road before they'd run into rescue vehicles coming the other way. Robin Wood, Rona, and some of the other more badly injured girls had been transferred to ambulances and rushed to the hospital in Oxnard. They tried telling the rescue people that there was nothing left of Sunnydale, but they weren't believed, and the rescuers wouldn't just let the rest of them continue on their way, unmolested. They were taken to a shelter that had been hastily set up for Sunnydale survivors in an Oxnard school gymnasium. It had seemed very empty, with only the Slayers and their few friends in it. It turned out to be a pretty good thing that they had the gymnasium, though. There wasn't a hotel or motel room available for a hundred miles in any direction: they had all been filled by the people who had left Sunnydale over the previous weeks.

They played a bit of a shell game with the relief workers to keep the authorities from getting Faith's name: Willow still hadn't made her disappear from the system. The spells she used for that were a scaled back version of what the Monks had done to create Dawn. They didn't affect people's memories, only what was actually recorded about Faith. Photos of her were subtlety modified, moving her eyes farther apart, changing the shape of her nose and mouth a bit, adjusting her hairline. Not so much to make her unrecognizable to anyone who knew her, but enough so that if they were compared to the real Faith, by someone who didn't know her, they'd think that she just looked a lot like the girl in the picture, but a closer look would convince them that it was only a resemblance. The fingerprints and dental records that they had on file for her now matched one of the Slayers who had died in Sunnydale, and Faith's description had been changed, making her two inches taller, and moving her tattoo from her right arm to her left. As a final bonus, there was a genuine police report saying that Faith had been seen in Sunnydale just days before it was destroyed. She was currently listed among the missing and presumed dead from Sunnydale.

Once all of Faith Lahane's old records were modified, an entirely new set had been created for Faith Russell: birth certificate, Social Security Number, Driver's license, medical and school records. A complete paper trail, good enough to fool just about any sort of investigation into her past.

While Willow worked her magic on Faith's files, Giles had gone to work re-establishing contacts with the survivors from the Watchers' Council, to try to get help for the new Slayers. A lot of the Council survivors were members of the old guard—the _really_ old guard—men and women from the generation before Quentin Travers who had retired from active service. One of the youngest of them was Roger Wyndam-Pryce—and everything that Giles had to say about _him_ had Xander feeling some sympathy for Wesley for the first time in his life.

The bad news was that it was that old guard who held the purse strings, at first. It turned out that the Council _did_ have contingency plans in place which took things like a large portion of its board being wiped out into account. In a situation like that, control of its assets was temporarily passed to a group of retired members until a new chairman and board could be elected.

The good news was that at some time during the previous century, in a move of unprecedented egalitarianism, the Slayer had been given a vote in the selection of the Council chairman. Since there was only one Slayer, no one had figured that she would really make much difference, anyway. And then, five years earlier, Travers had pushed through another amendment which gave all living Slayer_s_ a vote in choosing the board and its Chairman. At the time, he'd figured that the vote of a properly trained Slayer like Kendra would counterbalance whatever that unpredictable Summers girl might do.

The old guard had been shocked when Giles had shown up at the emergency board session, carrying the proxy votes of twenty Slayers, electing him, Xander Harris, Willow Rosenberg, Robin Wood, and Dawn Summers to the board, and further electing him as board Chairman. They had really howled at putting Dawn onto the board, but Giles pointed out that the Council by-laws placed no minimum age on board members, and there were precedents for members just as young: Prince Rupert of the Rhine had been Dawn's age when he was first elected to the Council board. They had stopped howling about Dawn, when they saw the first amendment that the new board made to the Council by-laws: _every_ Slayer was now a full member of the Council, and there were three board seats reserved for Slayers, to which Buffy, Faith and Caridad had been elected.

Things had gone more smoothly after that. Many of the Slayers who had family were sent back home, for now. The rest had gone to Cleveland, to check out the state of its Hellmouth. It had never been as active as the one in Sunnydale, but some feared that that would be changing, as a new equilibrium was established.

Giles was in England, working to get the Watchers reorganized. Many of the lower ranking members of the organization were still alive, scattered around the world. Robin Wood was left in charge of the core group of Slayers in Cleveland, while others spread out around the world to track down the new Slayers. Buffy and Dawn had gone to Europe, Willow and Kennedy were currently in South America, and he and Faith were here in Colorado Springs.

* * *

Xander was brought out of his reverie by Faith saying, "Hey, she's moving."

He looked at the compass, and saw that the needle was twitching. He reached for the key to start the car. Faith slid back across to the passenger side. They didn't have to wait long. A few minutes later the compass needle swung around, following a green sedan that passed by them.

"Alright, here we go." Xander pulled out behind the car, and followed it back onto Highway 115. They headed north, into Colorado Springs.

"Let's try out Willow's database," said Xander. "See what it can tell us about who owns the car with that license plate."

Faith pulled out the notebook computer that had been stashed under her seat, and opened it up. She typed in her password, and then started the database program that Willow had set up for them. She entered the license plate number. "Here it is," she said. "The car belongs to a Dr. Janet Fraiser, Major, U.S. Air Force. Current address: 47 Mountain View Lane, Colorado Springs." She checked her map. "That's right in the middle of Willow's circle."

"I doubt if she's our Slayer."

"No, but she has a sixteen year old daughter, named Cassandra," said Faith. "She's probably the girl who's with her in the car."

"Bingo!"

"So, why would her daughter be with her at the NORAD base?"

"Bring your daughter to work day?" asked Xander.

"I don't think that the Air Force does things like that."


	4. Part IV

**Part IV**

"You're not paranoid, if they really are out to get you," Janet Fraiser told herself. Over the last few years it seemed that most of her coworkers had been kidnapped, or had close relatives kidnapped, at one time or another. That made her really cautious. Everyone who worked for the SGC had had training in how to recognize when they were being followed. Some of the people hadn't taken the training that seriously, but not Janet. She knew that the risks were real, for her and Cassie more than most. There had been rumblings from time to time that the NID wanted to have a closer look at her daughter. Up until now the main reason that they had left Cassie alone was that there really didn't seem to be anything all that unusual about her. Janet was afraid that that might change if word of the changes Cassie seemed to be undergoing reached them. They might be less willing to take "no" for an answer, and some of them were unscrupulous enough to try to kidnap her. And now there was a car behind her that had been there for too long. She'd first seen it parked at the side of the road, and it had pulled out right after she had passed it, and followed her out onto the highway.

The one thing that made her feel good about the situation was that whoever was following her seemed to be a complete amateur. She had spotted them before she had even left NORAD Road, and they had stayed right there in her rear-view mirror ever since. They didn't even know enough to keep a few cars between them. There were good things and bad things about amateurs though: they were easy to spot, and usually easy to shake, but they tended to be unpredictable. They also tended to panic when things went wrong, and someone who panicked might do anything.

She waited until the car followed her onto Cimarron Street. It could just be a coincidence that it had followed her off NORAD Road onto Highway 115. 115 was the main road into Colorado Springs from there, after all, but when it was still behind her after she turned onto Cimarron, she reached for her cell phone.

* * *

"Do you get the feeling we're being led in a circle?" asked Faith.

"Yeah," said Xander, "but it looks like we're finally reaching the centre of it. They're pulling into a driveway."

"It's not her home address," said Faith. "We're not even in Willow's circle."

Xander pulled their car over to the side of the road a couple of houses down from the one where Major Fraiser had stopped. "Who lives there?"

Faith typed the address into her computer. "Looks like a J. O'Neill." She typed a little more. "Okay, make that Colonel Jonathan O'Neill, USAF."

"Maybe they're just visiting him."

"I don't think so."

"Why?"

"Don't move, and keep your hands where we can see them!"

"That's why," said Faith.

Xander looked toward the voice. The man who had spoken looked to be about Giles' age, and was pointing a gun at him from a few feet away. He was backed up by younger man holding something else in his hands. It wasn't a gun, but from the way the guy was holding it, it definitely seemed to be a weapon of some sort. It looked a bit like a coiled cobra, ready to strike at him.

He slowly took his hands off the steering wheel and held them up as he looked around. There were two similarly armed people on the other side of the car: one large black guy wearing a toque that was pulled down over his forehead, and a woman with short blonde hair. Xander thought that she looked pretty hot, and he mentally scolded himself over his weakness for dangerous women.

Faith had slowly raised her right hand. She'd closed the lid on her laptop at the same time, not moving fast enough to spook the people aiming guns at her, but fast enough to be sure that it was closed before they could stop her. She held up her left hand too.

"Out of the car," said the grey haired man.

"I think we should do what the nice man with a gun says," Xander told Faith.

Faith nodded toward the large black man. "I'm not sure that one's entirely human," she said, quietly enough that she wouldn't be heard outside of the car.

"Stop talking, and get out of the car!" ordered the man.

"They do seem to have us at a disadvantage," said Xander. "I think we better do what they say."

Faith shrugged, and opened her door. She seemed to flow out of the car, moving in a way that just exuded sex, and had Xander rolling his eye as she stood, and stretched.

Xander could see that Faith's performance was having an effect on everyone watching, but not the one she wanted. What he saw on their faces was more disbelief than interest, and the effect wasn't enough to make the man's gun waver away from him. "Come on! You too!" he ordered.

Xander got carefully out of the car, trying not to do anything to make anyone nervous. "Is there a problem?" he asked.

"Yeah, you've been following a friend of ours. Now up against the car. Assume the position."

"What position would that be?" asked Faith. "Doggy? Missionary? Cowgirl?"

Xander groaned. "Faith, _please_ stop trying to annoy the people with the guns." He turned and leaned against the top of his car.

Faith turned and leaned against the other side of the car. Xander could see her grin, and he was pretty sure that she wiggled her ass at the people behind her. He wanted to bang his head against the roof of the car.

The grey haired man put away his gun, and came up behind Xander. He kicked his feet farther apart, and away from the car before he did a very thorough job of frisking him. The blonde woman was doing the same with Faith while the black man of dubious humanity covered her, not that there was much chance of Faith actually hiding anything under her tight fitting jeans and t-shirt.

The search came up with a wallet and cell phone from each of them, and some loose change from their pockets. Faith also had a lighter and a pack of cigarettes, but nothing else.

The man looked between Xander, and his driver's license picture a couple of times. The picture was a couple of years old, and he still had both eyes in it. "Alexander Lavelle Harris?"

"Lavelle?" asked Faith. "Your middle name is 'Lavelle?' Your parents must have really hated you."

"It was my mother's uncle's name," said Xander.

"And you?" asked the woman who was examining Faith's ID. "Faith Russell?"

"That's me."

"Carter," said the man. He nodded his head off to the side.

"Yes, Sir." The woman nodded, and pulled Faith upright and away from the car.

'Great!' thought Xander. 'They're going to question us separately.'

The man grabbed him, and pulled him in the opposite direction. "So, why were you two following Major Fraiser?"

"Following?" asked Xander, loud enough that he hoped Faith's sensitive hearing would pick it up, without being too obvious about it. "We weren't following anyone. We were just lost. Pulled over here to look at a map."

"What were you looking for?"

"Uh…the Manitou Springs Inn," said Xander. He figured it was best to stick with the truth, for the most part: they really did have reservations there, and telling the truth made it less likely that they'd trip him up.

The man was looking at Xander's license again. "It says here that you live in Sunnydale California."

"Uh, well, I _did_," said Xander. "Before, you know, it fell into a giant hole. I haven't actually decided where I'm going to settle down. Thought I'd have a look at Colorado, though if this is the way you treat visitors here, I might reconsider."

"What about your girlfriend?"

"She's not my girlfriend! Well, she's a girl, and she's a friend, but we're not _friendly_ if you know what I mean."

"Is she from Sunnydale too?"

"Yeah, the last couple of years," said Xander. "I think she's originally from Boston." The fake history that Willow had made for Faith was pretty much the same as her real one, only leaving out things like her stay in prison.

"Say, who are you guys?" asked Xander. "Are you cops? Are we under arrest? Shouldn't you be reading us our rights, and letting us phone a lawyer before you ask us all these questions?"

"We're not cops, and you aren't under arrest. You're just being…detained, while we figure out who you are, and what you're up to."

* * *

Jack left Jonas watching their two prisoners in his yard while he and Carter compared notes on what they'd learned from questioning them. Both of their stories matched up pretty well. They both claimed that they had just gotten lost while looking for their hotel. All of the girl's IDs looked new, but she explained that by saying that she'd lost the originals when Sunnydale collapsed, and had had to get replacements for all of them.

Jack was starting to think that maybe this was all some sort of mistake, until Teal'c came back from their car, carrying a duffle bag that he'd found in its trunk.

Teal'c dropped the bag on the ground in front of him. "Colonel O'Neill, this is most unusual."

"What have you got there Teal'c?"

"Weapons."

"Guns?" asked Carter.

"Not guns," said Teal'c. He pulled the bag open, revealing a collection of swords, axes, crossbows, wooden stakes, crosses, and bottles labelled "Holy Water."

"What the—? What do they think they are?" asked Jack, looking toward where their prisoners were sitting on his lawn. "A couple of vampire hunters?"

"Vampire?" asked Teal'c

"Mythical creatures: drink blood, speak in clichés, only come out at night…"

"Yes," said Teal'c. "Many worlds have legends of such creatures, and I have seen _Interview with the Vampire_."

"Alright," said Jack. "There's definitely something not right about these two. Carter, take a look at that computer the girl had. See if there's anything on it. The way she closed it up, I got the impression she didn't want us seeing what's on it. Teal'c, take a look at what else they've got in the car."

It didn't take long for Carter to discover that she couldn't get into the computer. When she woke it from the sleep that closing the lid had activated, it asked her for a password. She tried restarting it, but that just took her to another log-in screen, this time with two accounts: one named "Faith" and the second named "Xander," both of which required a password too. There was a third "Guest" account that didn't need a password, but it only gave her limited access to the system. "I'll have to take this back to the lab, to get anything off it," she told Colonel O'Neill.

Teal'c's search of the car didn't come up with much: a map of Colorado, and another of the city, a compass, some empty twinkie wrappers and Starbucks coffee cups on the floor. A copy of a rental agreement in the glove compartment showed that the car had been picked up that day at the Denver airport. The Colorado Springs map had a section in the north-western part of the city circled. Major Fraiser's home was near the centre, but there were probably thousands of people who lived inside the circled area. Major Carter's house was inside it too.

Teal'c's attention was drawn to something else. "O'Neill, this compass does not point north. It appears to be pointing at your house."

"My house?" Jack held out his hand. "Let's see."

Teal'c handed him the compass. Jack could see that it was indeed pointing at his home. "Let's see where it leads us." He walked toward his house, with Teal'c following. Jack started to softly hum _Follow the Yellow Brick Road_.

The compass needle swung slowly toward the left as Jack walked up to his front door. Jack entered his house and turned left, following the short hall into his living room. The compass needle was pointing at Cassie, who was sitting nervously on his sofa.

Major Fraiser was on her feet. "What's happening, Colonel? Do you know why they were following us?"

"Not yet," said Jack, "but I think that this compass has something to do with it." He moved back and forth in front of the sofa a couple of times, watching the compass needle pivot, all the time pointing straight at Cassandra. He looked up at her. "You haven't started playing with magnets again, have you?"

"What?" asked Cassie. "You mean like before, when I had the mind fire? No."

"This compass really seems to like you."

"Let me see that," said Major Fraiser. Jack let her have the compass, and left it with her while he went to the closet at the other end of the house where he kept his camping equipment. He found his own compass there, and checked it. It seemed to be pointing north, and not toward his living room. He took a detour through his kitchen on the way back, to get one of the magnets holding a Chinese takout menu to his fridge door.

He waved the magnet around his compass, making its needle spin, on his way back to the living room. He got the compass taken from their prisoners back from Janet, and tried the magnet on it. Nothing happened. Its needle stayed steadily pointing at Cassie. "This is weird. How's it doing that?"

"Could the compass be reacting the naquadah in Cassandra's blood?" asked Teal'c.

"Then why didn't it point at Carter?" asked Jack. "She was lots closer when we were outside."

Jack told Major Fraiser and Cassie to wait where they were, and went back outside. He walked across the lawn to where Jonas was still watching their prisoners. He held up the compass. "Tell me about this."

"It's a compass," said Harris. "The needle points north; helps you figure out where you are."

"This compass isn't pointing north."

"It isn't?" asked Harris. He looked at the Russell girl. "No wonder we got lost."

"Do you see me smiling?" asked Jack. "This isn't a joking matter. You were following an Air Force officer. We don't take things like that lightly. You aren't going anywhere until I get an explanation from you. Are you NID?"

Harris looked blank for a beat. "Any idea about what?"

"Huh?"

"You asked me if I was any idea," said Harris. "Any idea about what?"

"Not 'any idea.' N.I.D!" said Jack, enunciating each letter clearly. "Are you with the N.I.D?"

"Never heard of it." Harris looked at Russell again. "Do you have any idea about the NID?"

"Not about the NID," said Russell. "Having a few about big, black and bald over there."

"What's with you and big bald black guys?" asked Harris. "Willow said you seemed to have a thing for Gunn, too."

"Hey, I like 'B's," said Russell.

"Oh… Oh! I didn't need that image!"

Jack couldn't believe it. These two reminded him of the way SG-1 often reacted to being questioned by a Goa'uld, except Carter never seemed to look at a Jaffa as if she were evaluating its potential for a roll in the hay. "Cut it out!"

"Why?" asked the girl. "Is he yours?"

Jack was left speechless.

"Oh, I know: you can't say. That whole 'don't ask, don't tell' thing. Silly if you ask me."

"I didn't ask you," said Jack. "And, for the record, he's not mine, in the way you are implying, or in any other way." He sighed, and looked toward a plain white van that had just pulled to a stop in front of his house. A couple of SFs got out of it. "We'll just have to see how a little time in the guardhouse affects you."

Jack waved the SFs over, and soon Harris and Russell were in handcuffs. They were led away, with Russell making comments to the SFs about how they liked it kinky. He shook his head.

"What was that about Teal'c being 'yours'?" asked Jonas.

Jack groaned. "Don't ask!"


	5. Part V

**Part V**

Carter had the laptop computer that she'd taken from Russell dissected on her workbench when Jack entered her lab. She was in the process of hooking up the hard drive from it to one of her own computers. "You find anything?" he asked.

"Not yet, Sir. I'm just about ready to start looking." Carter connected one last cable to the hard drive, and then turned to her own computer. "Alright, let's see what we have here."

She typed something on her keyboard, and looked at the results on her screen. She frowned and typed a little more. "Hmm…this may take some time, Sir. It looks like all their data files are encrypted."

"How long will it take you to crack it?" asked Jack.

"Depends on how good their encryption is," said Carter. "Could be anything from a few hours, to never."

"Never?" asked Jack. "On TV the hacker always cracks the code after trying a couple of passwords."

"We're not a TV show, Sir. In the real world it takes longer, and if whoever set this up used a good system, it will take a while."

"How about their phones?" asked Jack.

"I've pulled all the names and phone numbers from their memories, and sent them to Major Davis to run down for us. He's supposed to get back to me with his preliminary report in a couple of hours."

* * *

Xander sat on a hard chair in a plain, ten by ten foot room with dirty white walls. There was a table in the centre of the room, with another chair on the other side of it. Xander's chair seemed to have one leg longer than the others, so that it rocked if he shifted his weight. He'd tried the other chair, and found that it had the same problem. The fluorescent light overhead was buzzing, and tended to flicker. The air was warm, and humid, with a faint smell of mildew. There was a door in one wall, but no mirror, like they had in most of the cop shows. In its place was a video camera set in a top corner of the room. He resisted the urge to make faces at it. He just sat and waited, practising a meditation technique that Willow had tried to teach him. He knew that all of this—the wobbly chair, the flickering light, the heat and humidity—was deliberate. Designed to make him uncomfortable, and unable to concentrate: put him off balance for when they finally came around to interrogate him again. He wondered if they'd even try the good-cop, bad-cop routine on him. If he was lucky, it would be the blonde, Carter, who played "good-cop."

Xander yawned. He was bored, and tired. He didn't know how late it was; they'd taken his watch too: another thing meant to disorient him. He wasn't too worried, yet. His biggest concern was Faith: how much of this would she put up with, before she started to bust heads? He supposed that her time in prison would probably make her pretty immune to this sort of thing. She'd spent years in featureless rooms, with uncomfortable furniture, bad lighting and nothing to do. Of course if he still wasn't allowed to make a phone call when the time came for them to check in, things might get interesting.

He was a little disappointed that they hadn't actually been taken into Cheyenne Mountain. His inner geek had really wanted to see what the inside of NORAD was like, but he and Faith had only gotten as far as a rather plain looking building that he hadn't even been able to glimpse the tunnel entrance from when they were taken into it.

He heard the latch scrape in the door, and looked toward it. It opened, and the grey haired man, now wearing a BDU with a colonel's insignia, and the name "O'Neill" embroidered over the breast pocket came in. He was carrying a folder, and sat down in the chair across the table from Xander. He didn't say anything at first, he just sat, and leafed through the pages. Years of Scooby research sessions had made Xander pretty good at reading upside down. He could see that all the pages were about him. They seemed to be standard sorts of records: school transcripts, employment history, and stuff, he didn't see anything that gave any hint about vampires or Slayers. He decided to see if he could out-wait the colonel.

O'Neill finally reached the last page, and looked up. "So, Alexander Harris."

"Xander."

"What?"

"No one calls me 'Alexander,' except my mom when she's mad at me. It's just 'Xander.'"

"So, Xander Harris."

"That's me."

"Care to tell me why you were following one of our people?"

"I already told you: we weren't following anyone. We were lost."

"Looking for the Manitou Springs Inn."

"That's right."

"I'd like to believe you, kid," said Jack, "but you're not making it easy. What was with all the weapons in your trunk?"

"Those?" asked Xander. "Faith's really into the SCA."

"The SCA?"

"Yeah," said Xander. "The Society for Creative Anachronism. They dress up in period costumes, hold tournaments, pretend that they're in the Middle Ages, only with toilet paper, regular bathing, and stuff like that." That was the story they'd come up with to explain the weapons, if airport security ever asked about them. The weapons bag had been part of their checked baggage, so the question had never come up, which was lucky, because Xander thought that it was a pretty lame explanation.

O'Neill pulled a page with a small white card clipped to it from the folder. He unclipped the card and slid it across the table to Xander. "What's this?"

Xander looked at it. "It's my business card. Has how to get in touch with me on it."

"So, what's 'WCI'?"

"It's the company I work for."

"What's it stand for?"

Xander shrugged. "I don't know. They've never told me. I think it's just three letters."

"What do they do?"

"Research."

"You're a researcher?"

"No, I'm more the guy who builds all their book shelves. Just when I think I've gotten ahead of them, they bring in a few hundred more."

"So, what does Russell do for them? She doesn't strike me as the research type either."

"She's one of the people they send out to gather books."

"So, what sort of research do they do?"

"All sorts," said Xander. "Mostly into old myths and legends, stuff like that. A lot of translation work."

"And you came to Colorado Springs to collect some books?"

"Nyah," said Xander. "We're just on vacation."

"And what about that compass?"

"I guess it was broken," said Xander. "How long are you going to be keeping us here? If you're going to hold us, shouldn't we have a lawyer? Or be allowed to make a phone call?"

* * *

"What have we learned about our 'guests?'" asked General Hammond.

"They seem to be who they say they are," said Carter. "Alexander Harris lived in Sunnydale for most of his life. We have his school records all the way back to kindergarten, IRS records show that he worked a series of odd jobs after graduating from high school, until he started working construction a couple of years ago. He was a member of the Sunnydale local of the Carpenters Union.

"We've got less on Faith Russell. She dropped out of school in Boston when she was fifteen, and spent the next few years roaming around the country, before she settled in Sunnydale, about two years ago. She's had a few minor run-ins with the law: little stuff, like shop-lifting. She's never filed a tax return."

"Could their records have been faked?" asked Jack.

"It's possible, but not likely," said Carter. "If they were, whoever did it, did a first rate job."

"Any links to the NID?"

"Nothing in their records show anything," said Carter. "I've talked with Agent Barrett. He says that they aren't part of the NID, nor does he have any information about them being involved with any of their rogue elements."

"Would he tell you, if they did?" asked Jack.

"He's always been reasonably straight with us in the past."

"I checked our own files, from our investigation of Sunnydale," said Jonas. "We have pictures of both Harris, and Russell among the last group of survivors to get out, though Russell wasn't identified at the time. We still don't have any sort of satisfactory explanation for what happened there, and there is definitely something off about the story that last group had for why they stayed in town until the last possible moment."

"Is their story any fishier than the one most of the town gave, for why they left earlier?" asked Jack. "That whole situation was screwy. I still think we should have put more time into investigating it."

"I know you do, Colonel, but we found absolutely nothing that ties what happened there to any alien activity," said General Hammond. "The SGC doesn't have the resources to follow up on every unexplained phenomenon that happens on Earth."

"That wasn't your normal unexplained phenomenon," said Jack.

"And it is being investigated, but not by us," said the General. "We were pulled off that investigation. Let's get back to the matter at hand: have Harris and Russell said anything about what they were doing following Cassandra?"

"They deny that they were following anyone," said Jack. "They both maintain that they got lost looking for their hotel. I checked, they really do have reservations at the Manitou Springs Inn. Mostly they're just demanding that they be allowed to make a phone call, and have a lawyer."

"What about this 'WCI'?" asked Hammond.

"They are an international organization, based in Britain, but with offices all over the world," said Jonas. "They are currently undergoing a reorganization. Their head office was the target of what appears to be a terrorist bombing about seven months ago."

"IRA?" asked Jack. He'd worked in counter-terrorism before he got involved with aliens, and they were the usual suspects for bombings in London. It didn't feel right to him though. Things had settled down quite a bit in Britain in recent years.

"No one took credit for it," said Jonas, "which is unusual for terrorists. The British have it listed as 'probable terrorist activity' but they don't have any idea who did it. They also don't seem to be putting the resources into investigating it that I would expect for an attack of that scale.

"WCI itself has existed since at least the 19th century, and may be older. They claim to do research, like Harris said. They collect all sorts of ancient manuscripts, and artifacts. They are well known for sponsoring archaeological digs, around the world."

"Anything in Egypt?" asked Jack.

"Not especially," said Jonas. "Nothing in what they do looks like they're looking for Goa'uld, or other alien artifacts in particular. They seem to be primarily interested in the mystical, and the occult."

"Is there any indication that their interest was piqued by the experiments that we ran on Cassandra today?" asked General Hammond. "Could we have a leak?"

"I don't see how that's possible," said Carter. "Their flight left Cleveland at eight this morning, before we even started to run the tests. And they booked the flight, and their hotel, a week ago, so it couldn't have been because of what happened at the baseball game. If this is about what's happened to Cassie, they knew about it before we did."

"Do we have any evidence that we can use to hold them?"

"Other than the compass?" asked Jack.

"I've read your laws, and I'm not aware of any that would make having a compass that points at a particular individual illegal," said Jonas. "If they continue to follow Cassandra around, we might be able to use some anti-stalking laws against them, but so far, their activities don't fall into that category."

"And, um, I think I broke the compass," said Carter.

"What?"

"I was taking it apart, to try to figure out how it worked, and it just…quit. It's not pointing at Cassie any more. I don't know what I did, but it seems to be totally inert now. As far as I can tell, it's just a compass, with a demagnetized needle."

"That means that they will be unable to use it to locate Cassandra," said Teal'c.

"Did you learn anything from their computer?" asked Jack. "Or did you break that too?"

"No, Sir, I didn't break it," said Carter. "I haven't learned much either, other than whoever set up the encryption on it, knew what they were doing. I haven't been able to decrypt any of their data files, yet."

"How about their phones?" asked Jack.

"Major Davis ran down all the numbers programmed into their memories," said Carter. "Most of them belong to Sunnydale survivors. They seem to have scattered all over the world now, but a lot of them seem to be in Cleveland."

"Cleveland?" asked General Hammond. "What's in Cleveland?"

"The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?" asked Jack.

"Other than that."

"WCI has just opened offices there," said Carter. "That's the address on Harris' and Russell's cards."

General Hammond frowned for a moment. "Cut them loose," he said.

"But Sir, they were following Cassandra!"

"I know, Colonel, but we have no proof that they were doing anything illegal. It doesn't appear that we are going to find out what they are doing by holding them. We've placed sentries around Major Fraiser's home, and we are going to keep Harris and Russell under surveillance. If they go near Cassandra again, we'll grab them, but for now, we have no grounds to hold them."


	6. Part VI

**Part VI**

Xander tossed the car keys to Faith as they walked across the brightly lit parking lot to where their car had been left. "This time you can drive, and _I'll_ do the navigating!"

"You're going to let me drive?" asked Faith. "What ever happened to 'never again, even if there _is_ an apocalypse happening!'?"

"I'm making an exception." Xander reached the car and moved around to the passenger side. "If we get lost again, and wind up anywhere near anything even remotely secret, I'm thinking that those Air Force guys will probably just lock us up, and throw away the keys. They're so paranoid, I bet they've bugged us!"

He watched Faith carefully to make sure that she got the message, and saw her grinning in the overhead lighting. "Too bad you insisted on separate rooms: we could have really given the guys with the microphones a good show."

Xander sighed. "Faith, would you please just stop doing that."

"Not till I'm dead, Xan."

"Enough already, just unlock the car."

* * *

It was after midnight when they got to their hotel. The desk clerk told them that the hotel had let one of the rooms that they'd had reserved go to someone else, and that there was only one room available now.

"Please tell me it has two beds," said Xander.

"It has two beds, sir," said the desk clerk.

"I guess we'll have to take it."

The clerk took Xander's credit card, and swiped it through a reader before he prepared a couple of key cards for him and Faith. Xander wondered if the clerk was really telling the truth about there only being one room available, or if the Air Force had something to do with this, forcing him and Faith into one room so they could listen in to anything that they might have to say to each other.

* * *

Jack and Teal'c climbed into the back of the surveillance van. "Anything?" he asked Carter.

"No, Sir," said Carter, "but I'm pretty sure that they know that we're listening to them."

"Why's that?"

"Russell made some comments about 'giving the listeners a hard-on' before they went to sleep. Harris didn't seem to appreciate them."

"Did they say anything of interest?"

"Not really, Sir. Harris seems to have picked up a pile of tourist brochures from the hotel lobby. They mostly talked about what they plan to see tomorrow."

"Did they make any decisions?"

"No, Sir."

"Rats. If we knew where they were going, we could get some surveillance set up ahead of time."

"Most of the places they were discussing will be very difficult to follow them in, without having our people spotted, and it will be just as hard to bug them."

"Okay, Teal'c and I will take the rest of the night watch. You and Jonas go get some sleep."

* * *

Xander felt something tickling at his ear. He batted at it with his hand, but hit nothing. He felt it again, like someone was gently blowing against it. "Go away Ahn, I'm still sleeping."

"Time to get up, sleepyhead," breathed a voice in his ear.

"I'm tired. I'll give you your orgasms later."

"Is that a promise?" Faith asked brightly.

Xander bolted upright in his bed. "Oh god! Faith! Don't do that to me!"

Faith pouted at him. "Does that mean you won't give me orgasms? Anya spoke very highly of your abilities in that area."

It felt like someone had stabbed a knife into his gut. "Don't," he snarled out. "Just…don't."

Faith realized that she'd gone too far with her teasing. "Sorry Xan. You still miss her, don't you?"

"Yeah… It's only been a couple of months."

"I'll try to lay off with the flirting…a little bit."

"Don't put too much of a strain on yourself," said Xander. "Just give me a chance to wake up, first; know who I'm talking too."

"I've been up for over an hour," said Faith. "I even went for a swim in the pool. Get yourself into the shower, and I'll order us breakfast."

"We can go to a restaurant," said Xander. "The room service menu costs twice as much."

"Yeah, but we saved enough by only taking one room, that we can afford it."

"I want to get out of here, get some place where we can talk." Xander started to get out of his bed. "Have you checked for any email yet?"

"Nyah, I thought I'd wait for you."

"You can check it, while I have my shower, and pass along our news," said Xander. "Just remember what Willow told us about security…and here I thought she was being paranoid." He disappeared into the bathroom.

* * *

"Good," said Carter in the surveillance van. She and Jonas had returned just after sunrise. "She's going to use the computer. I'll be able to get her password when she logs in. That should help us decrypt the copy I made of their hard drive."

"How's that?" asked Colonel O'Neill.

"I installed a key-logger in their computer. It'll transmit whatever she types to us. That should give us the key we need to decrypt their files. The ones in Russell's account, anyway."

"Harris seems to have warned her to be careful."

"Hmm…" Carter was watching her computer screen. "Looks like she is… She's logged in to the guest account… Looks like she's going to do a virus scan…that won't catch my logger, it's hardwired into the keyboard…" Her screen suddenly went blank. "What happened?"

* * *

Faith smiled when she saw the message displayed on the laptop's screen: "Unauthorized modification neutralized." Willow had digressed into a ten minute explanation of how their laptops had been specially modified, with a mixture of high tech and magic, so that they could detect any tampering and deal with it, when she had given them their computer security lecture. Faith had tuned most of it out. All she cared about was that if the computer ever spent any time out of her or Xander's possession, that she wasn't to log in to her account until after she had run the virus scan. It seemed that Red's precautions hadn't been a waste of time. She was still careful as she typed up a report of her and Xander's adventure with the Air Force yesterday, being sure that the account she gave of the incident matched with what they had told the Air Force guys. She knew that Willow and Giles would be able to read between the lines and figure out what had really happened. She wasn't so sure about Buffy, but she had Dawn with her.

She had just encrypted the message, and sent it off into the wilds of the internet when Xander came out of the bathroom. His hair was still damp, and he was dressed in clean clothes. "You ready for breakfast?" he asked her.

"I was born ready."

Xander grabbed his keys off the bedside table. "Let's go."

They passed by the hotel's own restaurant, and went out to the parking lot for their car. Xander drove them a couple of miles before he started looking for a place to eat. He selected an _International House of Pancakes_. Once inside they picked a table that gave them a good view of the door, so they could see if anyone followed them in. "Okay, it's probably safe to talk now."

It wasn't quite safe. A waitress came by with a pot of coffee, and menus for them. Faith let her fill their cups, and then leave again before she asked her first question. "So… do you think that they know the girl's a Slayer?"

Xander was already looking over his menu. "If they know about Slayers, they'd probably already know who we are, and what we're doing here. I don't think that could be it."

"So why were they so hot to detain us?"

"It could be just like they said," said Xander. "Major Fraiser spotted us following her, and they're afraid that we're some sort of terrorists or something. Once they got a look at the stuff in the trunk, they just think we're nuts."

"But they found the compass too," said Faith. "O'Neill took it into his house. They must know it pointed at the girl."

"Hmm." Xander flipped to another page in the menu. "What about that Teal guy? Is he some sort of demon?"

Faith shook her head. "I don't think so. He just felt…different. Not demony, but not entirely human either. I got the same feeling from that Jonas guy too, but not as strong."

The waitress came back and asked if they were ready to order. Faith asked for the Country Fried Steak & Eggs, and Xander ordered the Belgian Waffles with Strawberries.

"What was she doing in the base?" asked Xander, after she had gone again.

"It's been over a month since she got her power," said Faith. "Maybe she told her mother about it. Her mother's a doctor…she might have wanted to run tests."

"So, the Air Force knows that there's something different about her, but they don't know why."

"If we're lucky."

"How often do we get lucky?" asked Xander.

"World's still here, isn't it?" asked Faith.

"Point."

"So, what do we do now?"

"I think we'll just play tourist for a couple of days," said Xander. "See if the Air Force guys get tired of following us around." He nodded toward a couple of men who had just entered the restaurant. They both looked fit, and clean-cut, like they had just changed out of their uniforms. They took a table near Xander and Faith. "So, what do you say we start with the Garden of the Gods this morning?"

"Alright," said Faith. "Then we can do the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo this afternoon."

"The zoo?"

"Sure," said Faith. "I haven't been to a zoo since…well, pretty much never."

"I don't know. Last time I went to the zoo there was that hyena thing."

"What are the chances of something like that happening again?"

"You know you just jinxed us, don't you?"

* * *

They spent the next couple of days visiting Colorado Springs area tourist traps, snatching bits of conversation about their real purpose, and making plans during the few moments when they were sure that they had temporarily lost their tails. They quickly identified half a dozen different people who were following them around in pairs. They even gave them names: the two men who had followed them into the IHoP were Tom and Jerry; another couple, an Hispanic man with a red headed woman, were Ricky and Lucy; a tall man with a shorter companion, were Bud and Lou. Those six were so obvious that they were sure that there were more that they hadn't spotted.

A few times they'd gone shopping—an activity that Xander had objected to loudly and often. He'd follow Faith from store to store, carrying her bags while she tried on various outfits, and asked his opinion of them. This was an activity that Xander found particularly excruciating, because Faith's taste in clothing was provocative at its mildest. Watching Faith model leather pants that fit her like a second skin was an activity that Xander would have enjoyed a couple of months earlier, and he hoped that, given enough time, he would come to enjoy it again, but right now it was something that he really didn't want to do. He didn't have to pretend not to be having fun.

* * *

Xander settled himself on his bed in their hotel room, with the remote for the TV in one hand, and the card showing what movies were available in the other.

Faith came out of the bathroom, changed into a fresh set of clothes. She grabbed her red leather jacket. "Want to come shopping with me?"

Xander grimaced. "Not tonight." He held up the card. "_The Two Towers_ is starting in ten minutes."

"You're as bad as Andrew."

"Not hardly," said Xander. "At least I know this stuff is fantasy."

"I'm not so sure," said Faith. "I sometimes feel like I lived through that Helms Deep shit."

"Go," said Xander. "Shop. Let me watch my movie."

"Alright. See you later." She pulled on her jacket and left the room.

* * *

Faith wandered through the mall, seeming to window shop, but her senses were really elsewhere, monitoring the area around her. She had spotted Lucy and Ricky following her long ago, and her instincts were telling her that there was someone else. Someone she hadn't spotted yet, but she knew they were there.

She had scouted this mall the day before, learning its layout. It had three levels, with an open atrium in the centre. She wandered back and forth, spending time in stores, starting on the ground floor, and working her way up to the top. She could see Ricky and Lucy, and her instincts told her where their backup had to be, even if she couldn't see them. A reversal in her direction of travel guaranteed that everyone was behind her when she threaded her way through a crowd of people near the elevators. She moved suddenly to the railing, and climbed over it. She dropped down, catching the ledge to swing herself onto the level below her. She shed her red jacket, and shoved it into some potted shrubs. The people following her over the last couple of days had only seen her in brightly coloured, and tight fitting clothes. The shirt she was wearing tonight was grey, and hung loosely on her body. She walked briskly toward the exit to the parking garage. She pulled her hair back into a pony tail as she moved, and tied it in place. Any of the people following her would probably have trouble recognizing her from a distance now.

She was alone when she reached the parking garage, so she broke into a sprint, running across it to the other side. She climbed a railing and jumped down into the night.

* * *

"What do you mean 'They lost her!'?" Jack had just gone to bed when his phone woke him, and he was not in a good mood.

"They lost her, Sir!" said Major Carter. "Team two followed Russell to a mall, and she vanished."

"What about Harris?" asked Colonel O'Neill.

"He's still sitting in their hotel room, watching _The Two Towers_."

"Alert the people watching the Fraiser house," said Colonel O'Neill. "Get everyone there."

* * *

Cassie was _bored_.

She had been stuck in the house for days. She hadn't been allowed to go anywhere on her own. Even when she had been allowed out to spend time with friends, she'd had an escort. They'd tried to find her someone who wouldn't look too out of place with her friends, but the female SF, a Lieutenant Mills, who had been assigned to shadow her, still put a crimp in her style. Not that she, or her friends, were engaged in anything all that questionable, but the presence of the young woman that everyone knew was almost a cop, definitely put a damper on things.

Cassie's shadow had explained to her that she wasn't interested in busting anyone who might be smoking a little weed, or underage kids drinking beer, or anything like that, but no one had wanted to take the chance. Not that Cassie did any of those things herself, but she knew kids who did, and she found that she wasn't welcome anymore in a lot of places if her shadow tagged along.

In some ways, it was worse than being grounded. At least the few times her mom had grounded her, Cassie had known that she had done something wrong. This time, she knew that she hadn't. And this time she knew that she needed to be _out_ there.

* * *

Faith jogged through the darkness. Even if she hadn't managed to lose whoever was following her in the mall, she knew that there was no way that anyone could still be following her, and not be noticed. It was nearly impossible to follow a jogger without being seen. She made her way toward Mountain View Lane.

* * *

Cassie listened to the house. She could hear her mother sleeping, and her shadow in the guest room. She knew that there were more people watching her house from outside, but she had a pretty good idea where they were; she knew that she could evade them. She quietly left her room and went down the hall to the bathroom. A large tree hid its window from the watchers on the street. She eased it open.

* * *

Faith approached the neighbourhood cautiously, sticking to the shadows. The Slayer was a night hunter: she was nearly impossible to see, when she wanted to stay hidden. She had spotted the surveillance vans watching the house, and she had seen other people—some that she recognized from the people who had been following her and Xander—that were trying to remain unseen in the dark. She worked her way closer to the Fraiser house. Tonight was just supposed to be a quick recce, to take a look at the place, see if there was a way get to it without the Air Force grabbing them. It didn't look promising.

She caught a glimpse of swaying branches in a tree that grew beside the house. There was no wind, and the branches didn't move the way they would if there had been a breeze. They moved the way they would if someone was climbing through its branches. She grinned to herself: none of the newbies were able to stay in at night for very long. They all felt a need to be out hunting. It was hard for a Slayer to resist it. Keeping it in check had been the hardest part of her time in prison.

Cassandra dropped out of the tree, into the neighbour's yard where she was hidden by a fence, and some bushes. She stayed motionless for a full minute before she started to move, staying in the shadows, unseen by any of the watchers guarding the house. Their attention was focused outward, looking for people trying to sneak in, not out. Faith thought that Cassandra moved well, and was showing more restraint than she ever would have at that age. Most of the newbies would have simply sprinted away, trusting their speed to get them away from anyone who might try to follow them. This girl had the patience to use stealth.

* * *

It had been harder to get clear of her house without being seen than Cassie had expected. There seemed to be more people watching it tonight than there had been in the past. It also occurred to her that getting back inside without getting caught would be tougher than getting out. She hadn't really thought about that before she left.

She came out of hiding after travelling a couple of blocks from her home. She moved openly out onto the sidewalk, and picked up her pace a bit. There was a lot of ground that she wanted to cover before she got back home. She figured that she could check out the Crystal Valley, and Fairview cemeteries, and still get back home before dawn.

She was only a mile from home when she first noticed it: a feeling that someone was following her. She looked, but she couldn't see anyone. She started moving a little faster, her brisk walk changing to a jog. She kept looking back from time to time. She couldn't shake the feeling that there was someone behind her, but try as she might, she couldn't spot them.

* * *

Faith's smile grew as she followed Cassandra. She obviously knew that she was being followed. It had taken all of Faith's skill to keep from being seen. Her admiration was tempered a bit by how Cassandra had reacted, though. The smart thing for her to do would have been to head back home, or failing that, for someplace crowded. Instead she was reacting…well, pretty much the way Faith would have herself. If it had been something nasty following her, heading into the cemetery wasn't really all that bright. It showed that she had more confidence in her ability to handle herself than a newly called Slayer should. One of the girls that the old Council had been training, almost from birth, might have felt that way, but most of them had been killed by the First. Kennedy was one of the few girls who'd had much Council training who had made it as far as Sunnydale, and Faith had always felt that she had an inflated opinion of just how good she was.

Cassandra slowed down as she moved between the headstones, pausing from time to time to take a closer look at some of them. She lingered long enough at one or two that Faith thought that she might know the people who had been buried there. Faith took a look at the stones that had attracted Cassie's attention, and saw that they belonged to Air Force personnel.

* * *

Cassie had had enough. She looked around. She knew the area: she'd wandered through this cemetery enough times in the last month. She had a choice of escape routes, if things went wrong. She trusted her new speed would get her away from nearly anyone. She still hadn't spotted her pursuer, but whoever it was had gotten closer since she'd entered the cemetery. She turned back toward where she knew her follower had to be. "Show yourself!"

"Hey!" A form separated from the shadows, closer to her than Cassie would have thought possible. How had she gotten that close?

Cassie was surprised that it was a girl…a girl that she'd seen through the window from Jack's living room. "Who are you?"

"Faith, and you?"

"You're the one following me. You don't know my name?"

"Okay, so you're Cassandra Fraiser."

"Why are you following me?"

Faith shrugged. "I just want to talk to you." She wandered over toward a headstone, and hopped up onto it. She sat there looking at Cassie for a moment before she pulled a pack of cigarettes out of a pocket, and took one out. She used a lighter from another pocket to light it. She held the pack out toward Cassie. "You smoke?"

Cassie shook her head. "What do you want to talk about?"

Faith blew out a cloud of smoke. "The changes you've been feeling over the last couple of months."

"What changes?"

Faith grinned at her. "Oh, you know: you're stronger, faster, you've got this weird compulsion to wander through cemeteries after dark."

"What do you want to know about it?"

"I'm not here to ask you about it," said Faith. "I'm here to tell you what's happened to you."

"You know?"

"Of course. You're one of us now."

"One of who?"

"A Slayer."

"A what?"

"A Slayer. Like me. Like a hundred or more other girls scattered around the world."

"So what's a Slayer?"

"This really works better when some guy with a stuffy English accent says it," said Faith, "but here goes: 'The world is older than you know, and contrary to popular myth, it didn't start out as a paradise. Demons ruled the Earth, but in time they lost their purchase on this world, and the way was made for mortal creatures, for man. But some vestiges of the old ones remained, certain magics, certain creatures, and vampires.'"

"Vampires?" asked Cassie.

"Yep, vampires. It sounds silly, I know, but they're real."

"Are you sure you shouldn't be taking some medication?"

Faith sighed. "It's too bad that Colorado Springs seems to be dead, as far as the undead are concerned. This was the point where my first Watcher tossed me a stake, just as a vamp came up out of the ground in front of me."

"Watcher?"

"Those stuffy English guys I mentioned earlier. Most of them got blown up, back before Christmas."

"Blown up?"

"Yeah, there was this thing, called the First Evil. It had a guy working for it who appreciated the destructive power of C4. Most demons are stuck in the middle ages when it comes to weapons…the ones that don't just use teeth and claws. Of course part of that's because they tend to be pretty immune to things like bullets."

"Okay, let's suppose for a moment that you aren't on drugs, or you shouldn't be taking medication. How do I figure into this?"

"Okay, stuffy English voice again: 'For as long as there's been demons, there has been the Slayer. One girl in all the world—'"

"I thought you said there were a hundred of us."

"Yeah, now there are. Before a couple of months ago, there were only two."

"Still more than one."

"Yeah…that happened about six years ago, instead of a Chosen One, there was a Chosen Two."

"Chosen Two?"

"Let me finish. Where was I? Oh yeah: 'One girl in all the world, a Chosen One. One girl with the strength and skill to hunt the demons, to stop the spread of their evil. She is the Slayer.'"

"So now I'm one of these Slayers."

"Yep."

"This is nuts."

"I know."

"So, how did I wind up a Slayer. Who chose me?"

"We don't know." Faith shrugged. "The Powers that Screw Us, random chance, something else…all we know is that this time, you heard the call, and you chose to answer 'yes.' That's something that none of the Slayers before you ever had a vote on."

"Heard the call?" asked Cassie.

"Yeah," said Faith. "Are you ready to be strong?"


	7. Part VII

**Part VII**

They kept talking through the night. Faith told her about the First, how Willow had cast the spell to activate all the Potentials, and the destruction of Sunnydale. Cassie took everything with a grain—more like a barrel—of salt. She wasn't sure if she believed a word that Faith was telling her, but some of the things that Faith knew…how could she know about the dreams? Her description of the battle against the Turok-han matched some of her dreams exactly, right down to the weird axe-like weapon that figured so centrally in so many of them.

"So, now that I'm one of these Slayers, what am I supposed to do?" asked Cassie eventually. "Am I supposed to go out hunting monsters now?"

"No, not yet," said Faith. "I'm just here to tell you what's happened to you. You aren't ready to go hunting vamps—not without any training, or backup. Most people don't even know where the heart really is."

"My mom's a doctor, and Sam's taught me a bit about how to fight," said Cassie defiantly.

"Who's Sam, your boyfriend?"

"No, Samantha Carter. She's a Major in the Air Force."

Faith smiled. "Oh! Blondie."

"She wouldn't like you calling her that."

"She's not here." Faith hopped down off her tombstone. "Let's see what you've got." She made a 'come here' gesture with her hands. "Bring it on."

"What?"

"Attack me. Let's see what you can do."

Cassie hesitated for a moment, and then she rushed at Faith. She wasn't entirely sure what happened next, but she found herself pinned to the ground, unable to move.

"If I was a vampire, you'd be dead about now," said Faith. "So you aren't to go hunting until after you've had some training. You've got to quit this wandering through graveyards in the dark too." She let Cassie go, and got back to her feet.

Cassie brushed herself off as she sat up on the ground."But I feel like I need to be out here."

"That's the Slayer talking. You've got to show her who's boss. Use your head." Faith held out her hand to pull Cassie to her feet.

Cassie grabbed Faith's hand and yanked, pulling Faith off balance, and down onto the ground with her. She moved quickly to pin Faith under her.

Faith lay still for a moment. "Not bad, but…" She bucked under Cassie, throwing her off, and then their positions were reversed, but try as she might, Cassie couldn't escape from the hold that Faith had on her. "Holds that work fine on normal people don't work so well on Slayers. We can do things they can't."

Faith let her go again, and this time they both got to their feet while watching each other carefully, and keeping some distance between them.

"So, when do I get some of this training?" asked Cassie.

"We're not really sure," said Faith. "The organization is still pretty disorganized, and we're trying to change the way things were done. The old Council used to treat Slayers as disposable tools: 'One Slayer dies, the next one's called' and all that. They didn't seem to care too much about how often they had to break in a new girl. We're not doing it that way. You're what…fifteen?"

"Sixteen," said Cassie. "Seventeen in a few weeks." At least that's when Sam had calculated her birthday to be: the Hankan calendar didn't match up with Earth's very well.

"Okay, about the same age as Dawnie…gotta remember to buy her a present."

"What?"

"Not important," said Faith. "The important thing is that you aren't to go out hunting, not for a year or two, anyway. I'm just here to let you know what's happened to you, and to tell you to try not to let too many people know about it, for now."

"Umm, about that…"

"The Air Force knows, don't they."

"My mom, and some of the people she works with," said Cassie. "No one outside the base is supposed to know about it."

"Normally, we'd tell you to go ahead and tell your mom, if you want to," said Faith. "In fact, our original plan was to come with you to tell her, after we told you, if that's the way you wanted to do it, but that was before the Air Force started following us around, and bugging our hotel room, and stuff."

"They're just doing it to protect me," said Cassie. "They're afraid…"

"What are they afraid of?"

"Well, there are some people who might want to lock me in a room and run experiments—they've had trouble with that type before—they thought that you might be with them."

"We've had trouble with that type, too," said Faith, "which is why we don't want to involve the military."

"You can trust the SGC," said Cassie.

"SGC?" asked Faith.

"Uh…that's the project my Mom is assigned to."

"What's it stand for?"

"I'm not supposed to talk about that. Forget I said it."

"I'm not sure I can do that."

"You don't want me talking to the military about you…they don't want me talking to anybody about them. Let's call it a trade."

"Alright." Faith pulled a business card from her pocket and held it out to Cassie. "This has all my contact info on it. Phone, email, I wrote the hotel info on the back."

Cassie took the card, and looked it over. "So, what am I supposed to do with it?"

"If you want to talk some more, give us a call. If you notice anything weird going on—Slayers tend to attract weird stuff—give us a call. We'll still be at the hotel for a couple more days, if you decide to tell your mom, and she wants to talk to us."

Cassie looked at the card for a bit, noting that the address on it was in Cleveland, before she put it in her pocket. She wondered how she was supposed to tell the difference between Faith's sort of weirdness, and the sort of weirdness the SGC dealt with. "Alright, I might give you a call."

"Do that…speaking of weird stuff…what's the deal with that Teal guy?"

"Teal'c?" Cassie automatically corrected her.

"Yeah. You feel it right? Something not quite human about him? Same goes for that Jonas guy, but not as much."

"I felt something," Cassie admitted. She knew it was because they weren't from Earth. She wondered if Faith thought they were demons. Maybe Faith's demons were really aliens. She decided to test that theory. "You think they're demons?"

Faith shook her head. "No, demons don't feel like that. If you feel a demon, you'll know it. Demons feel…unclean, though some are pretty good at masking it. Those guys don't feel anything like a demon, just…different."

Cassie shrugged. "I don't know."

Faith watched her thoughtfully for a second. Cassie didn't think that Faith believed her. She wondered how Faith would react if she told her: "Hey, I was born on another planet, and all my people were wiped out by an evil alien. Teal'c and Jonas are from other planets too. My mom works with them, protecting the Earth from more of those evil aliens." She wondered how evil aliens ranked on Faith's weird scale. She wondered how her mom would react if she told her Faith's story about vampires and demons. Of course if she did that, she'd have to tell her mom about how she snuck out of the house and—oh crap!

The eastern sky was turning pink with the approaching dawn. She had to get home _now!_ She stuffed Faith's card into her pocket. "I gotta go! If I don't get home soon, I'll never be able to sneak back into my house."

"Don't worry," said Faith, "I'll come with. I think I can create a diversion for you."

* * *

Cassie had never run so fast in her life. For the first time in a month, she didn't hold herself back, and Faith matched her, step for step. They reached the end of her street, a mile and a half from where they'd started, in five minutes, and she still didn't feel tired.

They stopped by a hedge to catch their breaths, and have a look ahead, to see what was waiting for them. The closest of the sentries was only fifty yards away. "Okay, I'll wait here while you work your way back to that tree beside your house," whispered Faith. "Once you're ready, I'll get everyone's attention."

"How will I know when you're doing it?"

Faith grinned at her. "You'll know."

* * *

Faith waited for a couple of minutes, to give Cassie time to move closer to her house before she moved herself, creeping closer to the nearest sentry—the man that she and Xander had named Jerry. While sneaking around in the bushes wasn't her favoured style, she felt her heart starting to beat faster, in anticipation of the action to come.

She saw Cassie reach the area under the tree that was sheltered by the fence. She waited for a moment, until Jerry turned away from her. She stood up, and walked quickly toward him. She pulled cigarette from her pack, and held it between her fingers. "Hey Jerry, got a light?"

'Jerry' spun toward her, drawing his gun as he did so. He pointed it at the centre of her chest. "Freeze!"

"Hey, I just asked for a light!" said Faith.

"Don't move!" Jerry lifted a hand to the earpiece in his left ear. "I have Subject Russell in sector four!"

Faith could see activity springing up, all along the street, people scurrying about like ants whose hill had just been kicked. She saw Cassie jump up to the branches of the tree that were five feet over her head. She dangled for a moment, clearly visible to anyone who might look that way, before she pulled herself up and out of sight.

Faith was the only person who saw her. She held her hands out to her sides, showing her empty palms to Jerry as she took another step toward him. "Geez, overreact much? I've met some rabid anti-smokers, but this is ridiculous."

Jerry had both hands on his gun. "Down on the ground! Face first!"

Faith was close enough now. She darted forward, faster than merely human reflexes could react, to pluck the gun out of Jerry's hands. She was surprised that he was fast enough to manage to squeeze the trigger before she got the gun away from him, but the shot went harmlessly down into the ground. It did seem to wake up the neighbourhood though. Dogs started to bark up and down the street, and some lights started to come on in houses.

"Now see what you've done?" asked Faith. She quickly ejected the magazine from the gun, and the bullet from the chamber. She tossed the empty gun off to the side, and the magazine back to Jerry. "I guess I'll have to get that light some other time." She turned and ran away.

Faith stuck to the street for the first quarter mile, until she heard the sound of revving car engines behind her. Then she cut between a couple of houses, and jumped over a fence into a back yard. She kept going, cutting through yards, hurdling fences and hedges, until the sound of pursuit vanished behind her. She heard some distant police sirens, but she didn't know if they had been called in to help search for her, or if one of Cassie's neighbours had called 911 after hearing the gunshot. Or maybe someone had just run a red light.

* * *

Cassie was in the hallway when she heard the shot. She dashed the last few feet to her bedroom, kicked off her shoes, and dove under the blankets on her bed. She pulled them up to cover her clothes.

She tried to look like she had just awoken when her door opened, and she saw Lieutenant Mills take a quick look through the crack. Cassie sat up, being careful not to let the blanket fall down to show that she was dressed. "What happened? Was that a gunshot?"

"Don't worry about it," said Mills, "Go back to sleep."

Cassie lay back down in her bed, sighing in relief. She hoped that no one had been hurt. She imagined that there'd be more noise outside if anyone had been shot.

* * *

The sun had risen when Faith got back to the hotel. The clock radio on the stand between her and Xander's beds was showing 6 o'clock. Faith was feeling wound up—the sort of wound up that a fight without a good Slay at the end of it always made her feel. She had taken care of the hungry part of the problem by stopping at an all night donut shop on the way back here, and she spent a couple of seconds looking at Xander sleeping in his bed, and thinking about crawling into it with him. She shook her head. Not this time. If she crawled into Xander's bed, he'd be awake and welcoming her. She went into the bathroom to work off her tension in the shower.

When she was done in the shower, and after she had dried herself off, she slipped on the over-sized t-shirt that she was using as a nightshirt, and slipped into her bed for a couple of hours sleep.

* * *

Cassie changed into her pyjamas, but she never did get to sleep that night. She lay in her bed thinking about what Faith had told her. She couldn't believe anything Faith had said (come on, vampires?) but it had all _felt_ right. And Faith did have an explanation for her new strength. Okay the explanation involved magic, but it was better than anything her mother or anyone else at the SGC had been able to come up with. And there was no denying that Faith seemed to possess all the same abilities she did. No one else could have kept up with her when she was running flat out like that, and she'd felt Faith's strength during their little wrestling match.

Eventually she heard the automatic coffee pot start to gurgle, just a few seconds before her mother's alarm clock went off, so she got out of bed and went downstairs. Her mother and her shadow were already in the kitchen when she got there. "What happened last night?" asked Cassie.

Lieutenant Mills looked at Major Fraiser, without saying anything.

"I want to hear what happened too," said Major Fraiser.

"Yes, Ma'am," said Mills. "At about 0500 this morning, Sergeant Callahan was approached by Faith Russell, with a cigarette, and she asked him if he had a light. He drew his weapon, and attempted to detain her. She then proceeded to disarm him—he is rather vague about how she did that—and then she ran away."

"So, she's got a gun now?" asked Dr. Fraiser.

"Uh…no. She just unloaded it, and tossed it into some bushes."

"What about the gunshot?" asked Cassie.

"Callahan's gun went off when she took it away from him."

"Was anyone hurt?" asked Dr. Fraiser.

"No Ma'am, nothing but Callahan's pride, anyway. Half the people watching the house were sent after Russell, but she lost them. The rest of the team was pulled in closer, in case she was just trying to create a diversion, but there doesn't seem to have been any other activity. If she was trying to create a diversion, maybe whoever it was for was hoping that we'd pull more people away to chase her. What she did doesn't really make any sense, otherwise."

"None of this seems to make any sense," said Dr. Fraiser.


	8. Part VIII

**Part VIII**

Jack had had a bad night, and it wasn't looking like his morning was going to be any better. He hadn't gotten much sleep after being awakened by the report that Russell had vanished from the mall. It had felt like he'd just managed to get back to sleep when he'd been awakened again at 0500 by the report that she'd shown up near the Fraiser house, before vanishing again. When the call came in at 0600 that she was back at her hotel, it was nearly time for him to get up to go back on duty anyway.

So he arrived at the base early, thinking that maybe he'd make the General happy by catching up on some of his paper work. (Yeah, sure, you-betcha.) That plan was foiled before he even got his first cup of coffee, when he was summoned to the General's office. (Jack sometimes wondered how General Hammond ever spent _any_ time with his family. He spent more time inside the SGC than Teal'c and Jonas, and they lived here.)

He knocked on the General's open door. "You wanted to see me, Sir?"

"Yes, Colonel. There's someone upstairs asking questions about why we're interested in Harris and Russell. I want you to go talk to him."

"Who is it, Sir?"

"Someone from the Army."

"The Army? What do I tell him?"

"The truth, as much as possible, but he isn't cleared to be told anything about the SGC. Use the usual cover story. He's waiting for you on Level 10."

Jack took the elevator up to Level 10, thinking about just what sort of semi-truthful story he could tell this guy, that would have half a chance of being believed. He found an Army major waiting for him at the last security checkpoint keeping unauthorized personnel out of the most secret sections of Cheyenne Mountain.

He had the appearance of a serious soldier, who had seen combat. There was a look about his eyes that you didn't see in Pentagon desk jockeys…plus he had a Ranger tab on his sleeve, and the Army didn't just hand those out to anyone. That, and the scar that ran across his face, said that this guy had probably seen some action in his career. He looked young for a major too, not even 30 yet, which meant that he was probably good at it.

He held out his hand. "I'm Colonel O'Neill, Major. I hear you want to talk to me?"

The major gave him a firm handshake. "Major Finn, Colonel. Is there some place we can speak privately?"

"Right this way, Major." Jack led him to a small meeting room, and closed the door. He directed Finn to one of the chairs, and sat himself down in another. "So, what's this about?"

"You've been running background checks on Xander Harris, and Faith Russell," said Major Finn. "I need to know why."

"Can you tell me anything about them?"

"Probably not, Colonel."

"Does that mean you don't know anything, or you can't tell me what you know?"

"Why were you running background checks on them?"

Jack couldn't help noticing that Finn hadn't answered his question, which was a sort of answer in and of itself. He decided to go ahead, and give the version of the story that he had decided on during the elevator ride up here. "On Monday afternoon, one of our people noticed that she was being followed after she left the base. She called me. I instructed her to go to my home, instead of her own, and we had people there to apprehend the people who were in the car following her: Harris and Russell. They denied that they were following her, or anyone else. They claimed that they had just gotten lost.

"We released them, after we had questioned them for a while, but we've kept them under surveillance ever since. They know that we are watching them, and they are taking great pains to make sure that they don't say anything incriminating, anywhere that we can overhear them, but it is very clear that they are here in Colorado Springs for a reason. Last night Russell managed to ditch the team following her, and vanish for a few hours, until she deliberately let herself be seen, near the home of the person they were originally following."

"This person they were following, was she one of your junior people, maybe under 20 years old?" asked Finn.

Jack thought that was a very curious question. "No, actually, Major Fraiser is our Chief Medical Officer, and while I've never asked her age, she is over 20."

Finn seemed surprised to hear that. He had expected the person Harris and Russell were interested in to be young, which meant that he probably knew why it was Cassie…but he didn't know that it _was_ her. Jack decided to try to find out why for himself. "Why did you think they'd be interested in someone younger?"

"I thought that they might be recruiting," said Finn. "I suppose they could be looking for a doctor, but they wouldn't go looking for one who was already in the Air Force."

"Recruiting?" asked Jack. "For what?"

"I really can't say, Colonel."

"You can't say much."

"This is 'need to know' and quite frankly, someone working on Deep Space Radar Telemetry has no need," said Finn.

'We really need a better cover story,' Jack thought to himself. He looked at Finn, who seemed to have a half expectant look on his face, as if hoping for some sort of revelation about what really went on in the lower bowels of Cheyenne Mountain. Why would a bunch of people running radio telescopes be buried so deep underground, and under so much security? Jack decided to let a little bit of information loose, to see if he could draw anything out of Finn in return. "You think that they're trying to recruit someone young?"

"Who I think they're looking for would probably be fifteen to twenty years old," said Finn.

"Major Fraiser had her sixteen year old daughter with her at the time."

"Ah," said Finn.

"What do they want with a teenage kid?"

"I can't say, but they like to recruit their people at an early age."

"What are they, some sort of cult? Terrorists?"

"No!" said Finn quickly. "Nothing like that. They do not pose a direct threat to Major Fraiser's daughter…what's her name, by the way?"

"Cassandra," said Jack. There was really no real harm in telling Finn that: he could look it up easily enough for himself. "We're all rather fond of her. You said that they were no direct threat. That implies an indirect one."

"What they want her for is dangerous, but worthwhile," said Finn.

"We don't like the idea of people from mysterious organizations following her around."

"I'm sorry Colonel, but I really can't tell you anything."

"Are they NID?"

Finn almost laughed at that. "Oh, sorry, the idea of Xander working for the NID…" He shook his head.

"You know him," said Jack.

"Uh, yeah, I know him," said Finn. "I did my Masters degree at UC Sunnydale. I met him then. I dated a friend of his."

"Russell?"

"Ah…no, definitely not. I did sort of meet her once."

"Sort of meet her?"

"She wasn't really herself at the time."

"What does that mean?"

"You don't need to know."

"So, they're not with the NID. What about WCI? What's that?"

"A research organization."

"That's pretty vague."

"They're a pretty vague bunch."

"What's the Army's interest in them?"

"They're an international NGO, kind of a watchdog organization, keeping an eye on some things that we also have an interest in."

"Terrorists?"

"Not exactly. There really isn't any more that I can tell you about them." Finn rose from his chair. "Thank you for your time, Colonel."

They left the meeting room, and Jack accompanied Finn to the elevator that would take him back up to the main section of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex before Jack returned to the SGC. He went directly to General Hammond's office to report the conversation.

He had just finished when General Hammond's phone rang. Jack saw the number two light flashing. He knew that number one was the President. Number two meant that the call was coming from someone in the Pentagon. Hammond picked up the phone before it could ring a second time. "General Hammond speaking." He seemed to sit up straighter in his chair as he listened to the reply. "Yes Sir. … But Sir, they were following— … You are aware that she is one of our refugees from the Goa'uld. … Yes Sir. … Right away Sir. … Thank you Sir. … Goodbye Sir." He hung up the phone.

"Someone important?" asked Jack.

"That was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs," said General Hammond. "We are to suspend all surveillance of Harris and Russell, immediately."

"But Sir! They were following Cassie! Finn just confirmed that they want her for something!"

"I am aware of that, Colonel. We will keep the watch on Major Fraiser's house, and Cassandra, until these people leave town, but the direct surveillance of Harris and Russell is to stop now."

Jack sighed in resignation. "Yes Sir." He thought about the timing. Whoever Finn reported to, his chain of command had to be pretty short for his report to have reached the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs that quickly. Finn must have placed a call even before he got out of the Mountain.

* * *

Xander and Faith returned to their hotel room after spending the day at Seven Falls. Their tails seemed to have abandoned them at some time during the morning, which surprised Xander a lot. After what Faith had done last night he expected them to be stepping up their surveillance, maybe drag them in for questioning again, but it seemed that just the opposite had happened. They had been back in their room for less than five minutes when there was a knock at the door. He figured that the other shoe had just dropped, and that they were here to take them away, when he went to open it.

It was not who he was expecting. "Riley."

"Hey, Xander. How've you been?"

"Everything considered, I've been…okay."

"I heard about Anya, I'm sorry man."

Xander shrugged. "Thanks, I guess."

"So, can I come in, or are you going to leave me standing out here in the hall?"

Xander stepped back from the door. "So, the Air Force call you?" he asked as Riley entered the room.

"No, but I am here because of them." Riley pulled something that looked like a PDA out of a pocket of his uniform. This was the first time that Xander had ever seen him in uniform, and he was surprised by the gold oak leaf rank insignia. He hadn't known that Riley was a major.

"What's that?" Xander pointed to Riley's PDA.

"A bug finder." Riley looked beyond Xander, at the other person in the room. "Hello Faith."

"Well, if it isn't the clean marine."

"Army," said Riley. "I'm a grunt, not a jarhead."

"Whatever."

"I see that rumours of your death were greatly exaggerated."

Xander thought that Riley sounded rather disappointed as he said that. He knew why, and could see that Faith knew it too. He decided to head things off before she could say or do anything that she might regret later. "What are you doing here, Riley?"

"I came to talk, but before that…" Riley walked around the room, waving his PDA over the walls and furniture. "They're supposed to've turned them all off, but Colonel O'Neill has a bit of a reputation for going his own way, when it comes to protecting his people." He stopped at a picture hanging on the wall, lifted it, and removed a small black object, about the size of a penny, that was stuck to the back of it.

He continued around the room, finding more bugs as he went. Another was stuck to the bottom of the coffee maker, and more were behind the headboards of each bed.

"Gee, Xan, we coulda made a movie," said Faith, when Riley found a cylindrical device with a lens on the end of it, and about the size of a cigarette, that was attached to the curtain rod above the window.

Riley moved on into the bathroom, where he found two more listening devices, but no more cameras, which seemed to disappoint Faith. When he was done he dropped everything he'd found into the toilet, and flushed it.

"Okay, we should be able to talk freely now. What are you guys doing following the daughter of an Air Force major around? Is she a Slayer?"

"There's only two Slayers, Riley. You know that."

"You never were a very good liar, Xander. You know damn well that something changed, when Sunnydale was destroyed. We don't know what happened, but there's a lot more than two of them out there now. You guys have got a dozen of them in Cleveland alone…and why Cleveland?"

"It's got its own Hellmouth," said Xander. "Nowhere near as strong as Sunnydale's, but that might change, now that Sunnydale's gone."

"So, how many Slayers have you got now?"

"More than two," said Xander. "You don't need to know how many."

"I'm trying to help you guys out here," said Riley. "I've already gotten the Air Force off your backs."

"How'd you do that?"

"Hey, I'm connected. My boss's boss talked to their boss."

"So, we don't have to worry about them anymore?"

"You still have to get past them to talk to the girl," said Riley. "I've read O'Neill's record—the parts that aren't blacked out anyway. Asking him to back off completely wouldn't work, I didn't even bother trying. We've only pulled their surveillance off of you. They've still got a watch around the girl."

"Doesn't matter," said Faith. "I already talked to her."

"So, that's what that stunt last night was about."

"What are they doing in that mountain, that's got them so paranoid?" asked Xander. "It's not round two of the Initiative, is it?"

"I don't know what they're up to, but it's no Initiative." said Riley. "I'm also pretty damn sure it's not 'Deep Space Radar Telemetry.'"

"Huh?"

"That's what they tell everyone they're doing. Me, I'm assigned to the 'International Environmental Cleanup Taskforce.' We supposedly specialize in toxic waste, especially from third world biological and chemical weapons research labs."

"Chemical weapons?"

"Explains why we go in armed to the teeth, and a lot of the special gear we take along," said Riley. "Some of those places really don't want anyone looking at their WMD labs."

"Which brings us back to why the Air Force is so paranoid."

"I think it's got something to do with the NID," said Riley.

"They asked us if we were with them," said Xander. "I don't even know who they are."

"Really?" asked Riley.

"Why, should I?"

"The NID is the National Intelligence Division," said Riley. "They're supposed to provide civilian oversight for military black projects. Keep the 'war mongering militarists' in line."

"Sounds reasonable," said Faith.

"In theory," said Riley. "In practice…well, they were ones funding Dr. Walsh, and who turned the Initiative away from being an organization to fight the monsters, and into one that was making monsters. There's something going on in that mountain that the NID's been trying to get its claws into for years, but so far the Air Force has managed to keep them at arm's length. There was a major shakeup inside the NID a few months back, that sent more than one person to prison for a long time. O'Neill was publicly named as being part of the sting operation that exposed them. There is no love lost between him and them."

"Why would he think that the NID would be interested in a teenaged girl?" asked Faith.

"Some of the less scrupulous people in the NID have been known to try to get to people through threats to their families," said Riley.

"Or, if the NID already has someone inside their organization, they could be afraid that they found out that she suddenly got a lot stronger, and faster," said Xander. "If they were behind Walsh, that's something that they'd be interested in."


	9. Part IX

**Part IX**

Jack sat in his truck in the hotel parking lot, listening to the conversation. Finn had found most of their bugs, but he'd missed the new one that Carter was experimenting with that was based on some Asgard technology.

He had pulled everyone else off Harris and Russell, but there was no way that he was going to leave them completely alone. This way the heat would only come down on him, if he got caught.

What he was hearing was only confusing him more. What were Slayers, and why did they think that Cassie was one of them? He was slightly relieved to get confirmation that it wasn't the NID that was behind these people, and from the sound of things Finn didn't like the NID any more than he did, which was a definite point in his favour. He'd picked up a couple of names that he'd have to have Carter look into. Who was Dr. Walsh, and what sort of project was the Initiative? She'd have to be careful though. If looking into Harris and Russell had raised alarms with Finn's outfit, then there was a good chance that the same would happen if any enquiries were made about those too. She should look into that International Environmental Cleanup Taskforce too. And what had Finn meant about reports of Russell's death being greatly exaggerated? There was nothing like that in her record.

First though, he was going to have to talk to Cassie. Russell said that she'd talked to her last night. How had she managed to get past their guards, and why hadn't Cassie said anything about it?

He started his truck. There was no need for him to stay so close, Carter's bug had a range of miles. He pulled out of the Manitou Springs Inn parking lot, and headed toward Major Fraiser's house.

* * *

Riley got up from the chair he had settled into. "Well, that's about it. Keep in touch, Xander."

"I will…oh yeah, how's Sam?"

Riley grinned, "Six months pregnant, and not happy to have been put on a desk job."

"Hey, congratulations! Send me a cigar when the baby's born!"

"I will. One thing about being international: it's easy to get the Cuban ones."

"One more thing," said Xander. "If Cassie tells her mom about us, can we use you as a reference? She might believe another major telling her that we aren't a bunch of crazies."

"But you are a bunch of crazies, Xander. Only a crazy person could survive what you guys have been through, without going insane."

"Yeah, but you don't have to tell her _that_."

"Okay." Riley pulled some cards from his pocket, and handed them over to Xander. "You can give her one of those. The number is for our office in the Pentagon. I'll have her put on the 'need to know' list for Slayer stuff. Give it a call yourself, say 'hi' to Sam." He started toward the door.

"Riley!" called Faith. He turned back toward her. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"About what I did before…I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done it."

"You think that 'sorry' covers it?"

"No, but I still had to say it. It's one of the things that I can never make right, but I'm trying anyway, and the first step is saying it. I really am sorry."

"You in a twelve step program or what? Homicidal Maniacs Anonymous?"

"Only six steps," said Faith. "The other six are crap."

Riley turned to Xander. "Why's she here at all? After everything she did?"

Xander shrugged. "Glass houses and stones, Riley. We've all screwed up. She's earned another chance."

* * *

Cassie had spent the day wondering just what she was going to tell her mother. Everything Faith had told her had sounded crazy enough last night. By the full light of day it seemed to be completely insane, but it matched up with her dreams so well. How could Faith know about them? She hadn't breathed a word about them to anybody.

She spent much of the day at her computer. Faith had told her about a couple of internet sites that had real information about the supernatural on them. She also warned her that most of what was on the net was trash. "Run by the same sort of people who believe that little grey aliens are giving them anal probes." Cassie had almost come out and said that the little grey aliens were real, but she'd managed to keep that to herself. And as far as she knew, the stuff about anal probes was bullshit. What could a race that could read DNA like a book learn from sticking anything up someone's ass?

She'd learned quite a bit that day. One of the sites that Faith had told her about—demonsdemonsdemons(dot)net—was full of information about all kinds of the things that she had dreamed about. It also contained information about the Slayer, complete with the "One girl in all the world" spiel that Faith had given her, though it had a footnote that indicated that there seemed to be two of them now. Cassie figured that they hadn't gotten the latest memo.

Another site that Faith had told her about was sunnydalehigh(dot)edu. Fortunately the web hosting company that they'd used wasn't actually in Sunnydale, so the school's web site still existed. It had pictures of all the graduating classes from 1997 to 99 in it, and she found a picture of Xander Harris among those for the class of 99. He still had both eyes then, and was giving the camera a smile that looked like he was trying for debonaire, but just came across as goofy. She also discovered that Faith hadn't been kidding about the site having an obituary section. How could a school have so many deaths, and not make the national news? Even the final destruction of the school, which had killed nearly a dozen students, the principal, and the city's mayor during their graduation ceremony hadn't rated much notice from the national press.

Another name that Faith had given her, Buffy Summers, showed a blank silhouette among the class photos, and a note that she was absent the day the pictures were taken. She did show up among pictures of the Homecoming Queen contestants, and there was a picture of her from the senior prom, holding a toy umbrella, with a beaming smile on her face, over a caption about her winning the 'Class Protector' award. Cassie recognized her. She had figured prominently in so many of the dreams: being bitten by an ancient and ugly vampire, and then left for dead in a pool of water; taking a swan dive off a rickety tower into a vortex of blue light; and then the final battle beneath the Hellmouth, swinging the red and silver scythe, fighting the army of Turok-han. The girl that Faith said had been a Slayer for over eight years now.

How could she tell her mother about this? How could she tell her any of this without being dragged back into the mountain, this time for a psych evaluation?

She heard the front door open, and knew that it must be her mother getting home. She was the only one who could come in the door without ringing the doorbell, who wouldn't have half a dozen SFs pouncing on top of her. She took a deep breath. Best to get this over with. She still didn't know what she was going to say; she'd have to play it by ear.

* * *

Her mother was in the kitchen with Lieutenant Mills when Cassie got downstairs. She turned away from the cupboard that she had been inspecting the contents of. "Hi Cassie, how was your day?"

"It was okay," said Cassie. "Um, can we talk?" She glanced at Lieutenant Mills. "Privately?"

"Sure, Honey." Janet closed the cupboard door. "We can talk in my office."

They went downstairs into the soundproof office that Janet had in the basement. It had been set up so that she could bring some of her less sensitive work home with her, and had a secure telephone line back to the Mountain. "What is it?" asked Janet, after she had closed the door behind them.

"Um…ever since this thing started, I've been having dreams," said Cassie.

"Still?" asked Janet. "I know you mentioned them back in the spring, but I thought they'd stopped."

"They haven't stopped, I've just gotten used to them."

"What about them? You said that you didn't remember them."

"That's not quite true," said Cassie. "I just didn't want to talk about them… They're always about girls…my age, maybe a little younger or older, and they're always fighting."

"Girls fighting each other?"

"No, not each other… They're fighting monsters…vampires…demons."

"Maybe you've been watching too many horror movies," said Janet.

"No!" said Cassie. "And this isn't just about the dreams. I just had to tell you about that before…I've been sneaking out at night."

"What?" Cassie could see that her mother was angry to hear that.

"Ever since this started, I've felt that I needed to be outside, at night…I've been looking for something…hunting…I've been hunting for monsters."

Janet was starting to do a slow burn. Cassie sometimes wished that she was the sort to yell and throw stuff when she got mad, but Janet didn't do that. She just got this real intensity about her. The sort that would make men Teal'c's size back away from her. This was one of the few times that Cassie had ever seen it directed at her. "Cassie…Do you have any idea how _stupid_ that is?"

"I know, monsters aren't real."

"Not the monsters! A girl your age, alone, at night! _Do you have any idea what might have happened to you?_"

"I can take care of myself! Sam's taught me how to fight, and now, anyone I can't fight, I can run away from."

"Oh yeah? What if it's the NID looking for you? Think you can outrun a zat? And we still don't know what those two people who were following you want."

"They wanted to talk to me."

"_What?_"

"I snuck out last night."

"Cassie! _How could you?_"

Cassie chose to deliberately misinterpret the question. "Through the bathroom window. The tree beside the house hides it, so no one could see me leave. And they're set up to watch for people trying to sneak in, not out."

"You know that's not what I meant. Anything could have happened. We lost track of that Russell girl for five hours last night, and then she turned up here! What if she'd found you?"

"She did," said Cassie.

"_What?_"

"She found me. We talked. She said that's why they were here, just to talk to me."

"Why did they want to talk to you?"

"Because she's like me."

"What do you mean?"

"She's strong and stuff, like me."

"You mean she got strong a couple of months ago too?"

"No, she said she's been like this for about five years, and there's another girl who's been this way for eight. Then they made a bunch more just before Sunnydale was destroyed."

"They made you this way? How? Why?"

"Um…that's the part that's really hard to believe. She said they used magic, and it was to help fight the forces of darkness."

Several seconds passed before Janet spoke. "That's ridiculous."

"Uh…that's what I told her, but she insists that it's true."

"It can't be."

"Well, she's definitely got the strength and speed thing going for her. We ran, like, two miles in about five minutes."

"Even if she is like you, there has to be some rational explanation," said Janet. "Not 'magic.' Magic is just a word to explain things you don't understand."

"I know, but…" Cassie hesitated a moment. "She knew stuff. Stuff she couldn't know."

"Such as?"

"She knew about my dreams," said Cassie. "She described them to me. I never told anyone about them, till now."

"There has to be some other explanation."

"I know, but that's the one she gave me."

"Could she have been playing off what you told her?" asked Janet. "Started out with general descriptions, and moving to more specific things, based on how you reacted? Like a side show 'mind reader?'"

"No! She didn't ask me about the dreams, she _told_ me. And there was stuff she knew about them that I didn't even know."

"Like what?" asked Janet.

Cassie pointed to the computer on Janet's desk. "Can I show you something?"

Janet looked surprised. "Yeah, sure." She typed her password in on the keyboard, and then surrendered it to Cassie. "What?"

Cassie brought up Navigator, and typed in the URL for the Sunnydale High site. "Faith told me about this site, and told me I'd find her here." She navigated to the picture of Buffy Summers at the prom. "She's one of the girls I've been dreaming about. Faith told me that she's the oldest living Slayer."

"Slayer?" asked Janet.

"Yeah, that's what Faith calls us. She says we're supposed to slay the monsters."

"You're only sixteen!"

"I'm almost seventeen, and she said that she and Buffy were both fifteen when they started."

"You're still just a—"

"Just a kid, I know," said Cassie bitterly. "Everyone keeps telling me what I'm supposed to do. Even Faith told me that I shouldn't be sneaking out at night."

"She did?"

"Yeah, she says it's too dangerous, before I've had some training."

"Training?"

"She didn't go into that, much. She said they were still getting things organized. She said that they just came to meet us, tell us what was going on."

"Us?"

"Yeah, they said they want to talk to you too."

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Janet opened it, and Cassie saw Lieutenant Mills. "Colonel O'Neill is here, Ma'am," she said. "He insists that he see you and Cassie."

Jack was behind Mills, and Cassie could see that he was glaring at her, with an expression on his face that she thought that he reserved for second lieutenants who'd screwed up badly. "You have some explaining to do, young lady," he said.


	10. Part X

**Part X**

Cassie sat in the back seat in the cab of Jack's pickup truck, not listening to him rant. She had tuned out most of what he was saying the second time through, along with what her mother kept repeating. Yes, she was a bad person for sneaking out on her own at night. It was a dangerous thing for her to do. All sorts of bad things could have happened to her. Yada, yada, yada.

It was just too much. "Faith agrees with you, Jack."

That seemed to take him by surprise. "What?"

"Faith told me the same thing," said Cassie. "She said I wasn't ready to be out on my own at night…though she seemed to be more worried that I'd run into a vampire I couldn't handle, than just some random perv."

"There's no such thing as vampires!" said Jack.

"Yeah, and those little grey aliens on the cover of Weekly World News aren't real either," shot back Cassie.

Jack sputtered behind the wheel of his truck. "This is different."

Her mother had been blessedly silent so far, in the front seat beside Jack. She had let him take over the ranting and raving about how irresponsible she had been by sneaking out last night. He had only been slightly mollified to learn that she had come clean with her mother before he had arrived on the scene. He had listened while she told him about what Faith'd had to tell her, and then he'd announced that they were all going to Harris and Russell's hotel.

Jack's truck pulled into the hotel parking lot. "Maybe you should wait out here," suggested Cassie, after they had stopped. "You can listen in to anything they say. Faith said that they wanted to talk to Mom. She didn't say anything about bringing anyone else along."

"No way!" said Jack. "It's bad enough that you talked me into doing this! I'm not going to get caught sitting out in a parking lot if something happens in there!"

"If they wanted to do something to me, they'd have done it last night!" said Cassie.

"Yeah! When you were out of the house on your own!" said Jack. "I'm not letting you out of my sight again till you're fifty!"

Cassie sighed in resignation. "Yes Jack."

* * *

Sam was waiting for them in the parking lot. Jack had called her before they'd left the Fraiser house. He'd wanted to call Teal'c and Jonas too, but decided against it. They were in the base, and couldn't sneak out without anyone noticing. Jack had been reluctant to even involve Sam. They'd been ordered to back off from Harris and Russell. they could both be court martialed if they got caught, but there was no way he was doing this without _any_ backup.

He handed over the receiver for her bug to Carter. "I want you to listen in. Call the cavalry if anything goes wrong."

"Sir, we were ordered to leave these people alone."

"Which is why it's just you and me here now," said Jack. "If they're telling the truth, and they just want to talk: no harm,no foul. If they've got anything else in mind, I'm ready to face the consequences, _after_ we get Cassie away from them."

Carter placed the ear-bud into her ear. "Yes Sir."

* * *

Jack reached between Janet's and Cassie's heads to rap his knuckles on the hotel door. There was a slight pause before the door opened.

Harris stood in the open doorway. His eye moved quickly between Cassie and Janet before they settled on him. He held out his arms—hands close together, as if ready to have a set of handcuffs slapped on his wrists. "Here to arrest us again?"

Jack wanted to smack him. "We're here to talk."

Harris lowered his hands, and stepped back from the door, eying him suspiciously. He didn't invite them in; he didn't say anything: he just stood back from the door. After a pause, Janet and Cassie stepped into the room, and Jack followed them.

Jack's eyes scanned the room as he entered it, looking for enemies, even though he knew that there couldn't be any here—they'd had this room under constant surveillance for days, after all—but he hadn't survived this long by taking anything for granted. There was no one here except for Harris, and Russell, who was stretched out on one of the beds watching TV. The rumpled blankets showed that Harris had been using the other bed.

Russell used the remote to turn off the television. "Hi Cassie. I see you brought friends."

"Uh, yeah," said Cassie. "This is my mom, Dr. Janet Fraiser, and our friend Jack O'Neill. Uh, mom, this is Faith, and ah…?"

"Xander," said Harris. "Nice to meet you Dr. Fraiser." He held out his hand to shake Janet's. "We've met Colonel O'Neill."

Russell's eyes were on Cassie. "Are you sure you want to involve him?" Her head flicked in Jack's direction.

"Yeah," said Cassie. "I've know him ever since…a long time. I trust him."

Russell cast a quick look at Harris, and he shrugged. "We can't keep her from talking to him after they leave; he might as well hear it first hand," he said.

"Alright Colonel: what do you want to know?" asked Russell.

Jack listened while Harris and Russell repeated the same spiel that Cassie had told him Russell had given her last night, though as he questioned them, he couldn't help noticing that Russell got awfully vague about what she herself had done over much of the last four years. He couldn't help noticing that even though Harris and Russell said that they had first met while he was still in high school, he didn't have anything to say about what part _she_ had to play in the destruction of Sunnydale High. They both hemmed and hawed around his questions about that, and the next three years of her life.

Harris finally cut his questions off. "Look, you're military: you know all about 'need to know.' You don't need to know what Faith was doing!"

"You're asking me to take an awful lot on faith, from someone I never met until this week!" said Jack.

"No more than Teal'c did," said Cassie quietly.

Jack's gaze snapped to her. "What?"

"He's told me about it…the leap of faith he made, to trust you. He gave up everything, his whole life, based only on the word of a man he didn't know. I'm asking the same from you."

Jack looked at her, his first meeting with Teal'c playing through his mind. How had he looked to the First Prime of Apophis? A prisoner, stripped of his weapons. Weapons that the Jaffa had looked on with the scorn that European soldiers armed with muskets had held for bows and arrows.

But in that moment, Teal'c had believed in _him_. He had seen someone who would be a worthy ally. A fellow soldier. He might not have the strength of arms, but he had the strength of character needed to carry the fight through to the end. The Tau'ri weapons might have seemed laughable to the Goa'uld, but weapons alone didn't win wars.

"You're asking me?" asked Jack. "You may be making a leap of faith here, but you're asking us to leap off that bridge after you."

"_We_ didn't invite you to take any leaps, soldier boy," said Russell. "In fact, if you want to take a leap, you can take a flying leap off—"

"Faith!" said Harris.

Russell glared at him, but she shut up. Jack decided that it was time to seem to be conciliatory. "I'm just sayin', your story is a lot to take in. You're asking us to take a lot on faith here."

"Would it help if we had the army confirm our story?" asked Harris.

"The army?" asked Jack, trying to sound innocent, though this was the direction that he'd hoped the conversation would go.

"Don't play dumb with us, Colonel," said Harris. "We know that you've already met Major Finn."

"He didn't tell me a whole lot," said Jack. "In fact, he didn't tell me anything. He just told me to stay away from you."

"And yet, here you are," said Russell.

Jack glared at her. "When it comes to my friends, there are some orders I don't take well."

"Which earns you some points with me," said Harris.

Jack shifted his glare to him. "So…you were saying that the army would confirm your story?"

"They've agreed to talk to Dr. Fraiser here," said Xander. "Don't know if they'll talk to you."

"One way to find out," said Jack.

Harris looked at him for a bit. Jack found something unnerving about that look coming from that one eye of his, but it was a look that he knew well. He'd seen it in special forces veterans, and some of the members of SG teams, after they had survived a few hairy missions. There was a confidence there, and a look of evaluation: measuring Jack to see if he was worthy. Jack gave him the same look back.

They shared that look for several seconds, and then they both nodded at each other, in mutual acceptance, and understanding. The understanding of what each of them recognized in the other. It was similar to the understanding that he and Teal'c had reached in that moment on Chulak. Not the same, but he and Harris both recognized the warrior in the other. The man who would fight to the end for his comrades. It was a look you could see in both a friend, or a foe. Whether friend or foe was yet to be decided.

The moment passed, and Harris shrugged. "It may be too late to talk to anyone tonight. It's after nine in Washington."

"You won't know if you don't call," said Jack.

Harris pulled a card from his pocket, and a cell phone from another. He scowled a bit at Jack before he dialled a number he read from the card. He waited a few seconds. "Uh, hi. This is Xander Harris, calling for Sam Finn. Is she in?" He seemed to wince a bit when he realized that had rhymed. "Yeah, I can hold." He sat quietly for a few moments, and then started humming. Jack recognized the tune, but he couldn't quite remember the name of the song: something from the 70s; it was nagging at the back of his head. He glanced toward Russell, and saw that she was looking annoyed. Harris could see it too. "Sorry, I've got 'hold' music going here. I just thought I'd share my— Oh! Hi Sam! It's Xander! Riley tells me congratulations are in order! … Do you know if it's a boy or a girl yet? … "

Jack rolled his eyes while he listened to Harris go on about the impending birth of a new addition to the Finn family. He suspected that Harris was only doing this to annoy him. After a while he made a 'move it along' gesture with his hand at him.

"So, Sam, has Riley talked to you about getting clearance for you to talk to Major Fraiser about Slayer Stuff?" he finally asked. "Okay, good. Is it possible for you to tell the same things to a Colonel O'Neill? … Yeah, that's the one. … No, he doesn't need to know anything about your guys' ops, just confirm that what we're telling him is true. … Okay, I'm going to put you on the speaker."

Harris had a speakerphone attachment that he connected to his phone. He set them down on the table in the room when he was done. "Okay Sam, can you hear me now?" he asked when he was done.

"I hear you fine, Xander," said a female voice from the phone.

"Okay," said Harris. "We've got a few people here. Let's start with Faith. Has Riley told you about her?"

"He's mentioned her," said the phone. Jack didn't think she sounded happy.

Faith waved at the phone—which seemed like a pointless gesture from Jack's point of view. "Hi Sam."

"We also have our new Slayer, Cassie Fraiser. Say 'Hi' Cassie."

"Hi Cassie," said Cassie.

The phone laughed. Jack thought it sounded a little forced, but not too much. "Hi Cassie."

"Next we have Cassie's mom, Major Doctor Fraiser…or is that Doctor Major Fraiser?"

"Either will do," said Janet.

"I hear you," said the phone. "I'm a 'Captain Doctor' myself."

"Oh, yeah? What speciality?" asked Janet.

"I started out as a GP," said the phone, "but after I joined up with the military, I switched over to trauma. Say, you wouldn't be the Dr. Janet Fraiser who wrote that article on the cross species migration of viruses that was published by /The New England Journal of Medicine/ a couple of months ago would you?"

Jack looked at Janet. "Yeah, that was me," she said.

"That was fascinating work," said the phone. "I'd like to get a closer look at some of your raw data. It could have major implications in the transmission of diseases, across demon species."

"_Aht!_" said Jack.

"Sam, that was Colonel O'Neill," said Harris.

"Nice to hear from you Colonel," said the phone.

He had to stop thinking of it that way. There was a person on the other end, and now he had something he could call her. "Hello Captain Finn."

"So, you want to hear about demons," said Finn.

"I don't _want_ to," said Jack.

"No one in their right minds wants to," said Finn, with a chuckle.

"Look," said Jack. "I've heard a lot of nonsense, so far, from Russell, and Harris. I don't want to hear more of it from you!"

"Demons are real, Colonel O'Neill," said Finn. "I wish to God that they weren't, but wishing can't make things come true."

"Ah, actually…" Harris saw the looks cast his way. "Never mind. You were saying?"

"Once upon a time, I was a simple doctor, working with the Peace Corps in Central America, bringing modern medical help to the people living there," said Finn. "Then one night, my clinic was attacked by these _things_. Most of my patients, and my staff, were killed before a squad of soldiers came in and eliminated the things attacking us, along with my illusions. That was the night that I discovered that the world wasn't built the way I wanted. There were things out there that weren't explained by science."

"Aren't explained by science _yet_," said Janet.

There was a brief pause before Finn responded. "You're right. Sooner or later, science is going to have to address the supernatural. 'Supernatural' is an oxymoron. Everything that exists in the universe is natural. It is part of nature. Science needs to develop theories that take _all_ of the data into account. It can't just ignore facts because they don't fit in its current theories about the way the world works."

"Like demons," said Jack.

"Demons, magic, Slayers," said Finn. "Science doesn't have a good theory yet that accounts for them, but they're all real."

"Have you talked to Willow recently?" asked Harris.

"No, why?" asked Finn.

"She's probably the best person to talk to about how science and magic mesh," said Harris. "I doubt if anyone understands both of them as well as she does."

"Ah, we seem to have wandered away from our main topic here," said Jack. "What's all this got to do with Cassie?"

"Okay, a long time ago a group of mages, called the Shadow Men, decided that they needed a warrior against the demons," said Harris. "They took a girl, and imbued her with the power of a demon, creating the First Slayer…"


	11. Part XI

**Part XI**

"…and that's how Cassie became a Slayer too."

Jack looked at Harris for a moment after he had finished his story. Harris looked back at him expectantly from the edge of the bed that he had settled down onto. Russell was sitting beside him. Jack looked at her and saw that she was giving him a look similar to Harris's. Cassie and Janet both seemed to be waiting for him to say something too. They had settled into chairs surrounding the table that the cell phone was sitting on. "That story has got to be…the biggest pile of _bullshit_ I have ever heard!"

"It's all true Colonel," said Harris.

"Ask Cassie." Faith turned to her. "You've dreamt most of it, haven't you."

"I've had dreams about a lot of that stuff," said Cassie. "I didn't know what any of them meant."

"Captain Finn?" asked Jack. "_Was_ all of that true?"

"I can't vouch for the accuracy of a lot of the ancient history," said Captain Finn. "This is the first time I've heard about the Shadow Men, and how they made the First Slayer. Demons and vampires are real. The Sunnydale Hellmouth was real, even though he left a lot of stuff out."

"We don't have a month," said Xander. "We've already taken longer at this than we were planning. Cassie isn't the only new Slayer we have to get in touch with."

"But you still haven't given me any sort of evidence that you're not a couple of loonies," said Jack.

"You ran tests on Cassie. You know how strong she is," said Harris.

"We don't need 'magic' to explain that," said Jack.

"Oh?" asked Russell. "You got some other explanation?"

Jack glared at her. "It's a long way from someone suddenly getting strong, to vampires and demons are real. And I've still only got your word that you're strong too."

Russell got up from the bed. She waved Cassie out of her chair by the table. "Move." Cassie quickly vacated the chair, and Russell sat down in it. She placed her elbow on the table, with her hand raised. "Wanna arm wrestle?" she asked Jack.

Jack looked at her for a moment, and then placed his hand in hers. "Okay, go ahead."

He felt the pressure of Russell's hand against his, slowly pushing his arm over. He tried to push back, and nothing happened. As hard as he tried to resist her, her hand kept moving. He looked at her face. There was no sign there that she was exerting herself at all. No straining of neck muscles, no holding of her breath. She seemed to be completely relaxed, with her arm moving as smoothly as the sweep of the second hand on a clock. She had nearly pressed his hand down to the table top when she stopped, and then just as smoothly her hand moved in the opposite direction. Jack knew that he wasn't forcing it back up. Russell was still in total control. He had no more hope of beating her at this than he would have had if her arm was made of steel, and powered by hydraulic pistons.

She stopped when their hands were vertical again. "Convinced?" she asked him.

Jack released her hand, and rubbed his shoulder. "Okay, you're strong. Still haven't seen any vampires."

"I'm sorry Colonel, but we don't drag vampires around with us," said Harris. "They don't travel well. They tend to try to eat the other passengers on a plane."

"Plus there's the whole bursting into flames thing if they get caught in daylight," said Russell. "That really upsets the stewardesses."

"Sam, could you send the Colonel any files from the Initiative?" asked Harris.

"I don't know if I can get authorization to do that," said Captain Finn. "I'm pushing what I'm supposed to be able to tell him already. There isn't much left to send, anyway, Most of the records were sealed during the cover-up."

"What's 'the Initiative'?" asked Jack. He was glad that Harris had brought it up, so he could ask that question, without giving away that they still had a bug active in the room.

"Your tax dollars at work," said Harris. "The Initiative was a top secret project that was supposed to study demons and vampires and stuff. Called them 'Hostile Sub Terrestrials.' Unfortunately it was being run by a mad scientist type who decided to try to mix demon, cyborg, and human parts to make herself a super-soldier, with predictable results for anyone who's seen _Frankenstein_. We had to bail them out, after the whole thing went to hell, almost literally. They still wound up with over 40 dead."

"Even if every word you've told us _is_ true, I don't like the idea of Cassie being involved in any of this," said Janet.

"She doesn't have to be involved, if she doesn't want to be," said Harris. "We're not drafting anyone."

"Didn't you already do that, when you did your 'spell'?" asked Janet.

"The spell was necessary to save the world," said Harris, "but all it did to Cassie was give her power. What she does with it, is up to her."

"With great power comes great responsibility," said Cassie.

"Hey, a Spiderman fan!" said Harris. "Yeah, you have power, and that gives you the responsibility to use it, but we aren't going to dictate to you _how_ you use it. If you want to go and become a tennis star, or something like that, we won't stop you… but… umm…"

"If I start knocking over banks, you'll do something about it?" asked Cassie.

"Yeah," said Xander. "Not that I think there's much chance of that. And we'd prefer that you don't decide to become a professional athlete. That sort of thing might draw some unwanted attention."

"You still said that you want her to have some training," said Janet.

"Untrained power is dangerous," said Harris. "It's dangerous to Cassie. It's dangerous to the people around her. It's going to take her a while to get a handle on her new strength. Right now, she could kill someone, completely by accident. And not in a fight, or anything like that: just fooling around. She needs to learn to control her strength. Without that control, she's like a kid with a loaded gun."

Jack cringed inwardly at the simile, and he saw the sympathetic looks that both Cassie and Janet sent his way. Harris and Russell saw their looks too, and they looked curious, but they didn't make any comments.

"What sort of training do you want to give her?" asked Janet.

Harris looked uncomfortable. "We're still working on that. A lot of the old Council's support system was taken out by the First, and we're still rebuilding. Plus a lot of what they had in place was all about controlling the Slayer, and we don't want to work that way."

"How do you want to work?" asked Janet.

"We're making it up as we go along," said Harris. "Our main goal is to make the Slayers the masters of their own fate. Not be anyone's tools."

"Maybe we can help," said Jack.

"No offence Colonel, but we _really_ don't want them to become the tools of the military, or the government."

"You think I want something like that for Cassie?" asked Jack.

"I don't know," said Harris. "I don't know you."

"_I_ know him," said Cassie. "He's my friend."

Harris looked at her for a moment, and then shrugged. "Fair enough."

That wasn't the end of it, of course. Jack still wanted to see some sort of proof about what they said about vampires, demons, and magic. Janet wanted to know if there was some way to undo what had been done to Cassie. Neither was happy with the responses that they got.

Cassie seemed to be more interested in what sort of training they thought she should have. If there was anything she could learn on her own, or any sort of classes that she could take locally.

"T'ai Chi would be good," said Russell. "I've never had the patience for it myself, but my first Watcher tried to teach me some, and some of the other girls swear by it. And it's something you can practice openly, sign up for a local class, something like that."

"Stay away from any sort of martial arts classes," said Harris. "It's too easy to have an accident."

"What if I have Sam teach me?" asked Cassie.

"Sam?" asked Harris, with a curious look toward the phone.

"Blondie," said Russell.

"_Major_ Carter," said Jack.

"She's got, what, level four, in hand-to-hand combat?" asked Cassie

"Level three, advanced," said Jack.

"We don't want you telling just anyone about this," said Harris.

"Sam isn't 'just anyone,' and she already knows," said Cassie. "She was there helping Mom when she ran all the tests on me, and she knows that we're meeting you now, and I'm going to tell her everything you've told us."

Jack shot an annoyed look at Cassie. She was talking too much. He didn't want these people knowing that Carter was waiting outside. At least Cassie hadn't mentioned that they had a bug that was still working.

Harris didn't seem to notice. "We can't stop you, but we don't like it. If Major Carter does agree to help you, be careful: no sparring; concentrate on katas, and things like that. Work on your form, not strength."

"Something like gymnastics might be good too," said Captain Finn. "Develops your balance and coordination, precision movement, and you're not working directly with anyone you could accidentally hurt. You'd have to be careful not to seem to be _too_ good though, if you've get a teacher you don't want to tell about being a Slayer."

"And again, we don't want to be seeing you on next year's Olympic team," said Harris. "Even if you do want to visit Greece."

* * *

They left the room not too much later. Captain Finn promised to put together what she could on the Initiative, and have it couriered to Jack in the morning. Jack made sure that he collected one of her cards from Harris before they left.

They met Carter back outside in the parking lot. "You don't really believe any of that is true?" she asked them.

"They seem to be pretty convinced of it," said Jack. "Just a minute. I want to check something." He took out his cell phone and hit one of the speed dial numbers.

It only rang once. "DSRT Communications Centre, Lieutenant Reynolds speaking; this is an insecure line; how may I direct your call?" came the answer, all in one breath.

"Yes Lieutenant, this is Colonel O'Neill. I want you to get me a secure line to Captain Samantha Finn at the…" He looked at the card he had received from Harris. "…International Environmental Cleanup Taskforce, Pentagon office."

"You are not calling on a secure line, Sir," said Reynolds.

"I know. I just want to make sure that we can establish a secure line from the DSRT, to her."

"One moment, Sir, and I'll place your call."

Jack had to wait for about thirty seconds before he heard Captain Finn's voice again. "Good evening Colonel. I wasn't expecting to hear from you again so soon."

"Good evening Captain. I just wanted to confirm that you are really who you said you are. For all I knew, Harris had just called up one of his lunatic friends."

"I am one of his lunatic friends, Sir."

"Yes, but now I know that you're a lunatic who really does work in the Pentagon," said Jack.

"Was there anything else I can do for you, Sir?"

"No, that will be all. Good night Captain."

"Good night, Sir."

Jack snapped his phone shut. "Well, at least we confirmed _that_ much. These people really do know people in the Pentagon who will back up their story."

"So, Sam, you wanna help me train?" asked Cassie.

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," said Jack.

"Harris may have had a point, about it being dangerous _not_ to give her any training," said Janet. "Sergeant Siler's got a cracked bone in his hand. The sort of strength Cassie's exhibiting, there could be other accidents if she's not careful."

"Is he alright?" asked Cassie.

"He'll be fine," said Janet. "He'll have to wear a splint for a bit, but it's nothing to worry about. He usually manages to do worse to himself every other month or so."

"So, Sam?" asked Cassie.

Carter gave him a look, and Jack gave her a reluctant half nod back. She smiled at Cassie. "Sure, I can help you. I don't think we should be doing much self-defence though, but I've done a little T'ai Chi myself, and can teach you that, and a few other things."

"Maybe we can get Teal'c to teach me how to fight with a staff," said Cassie.

"_Staff?_ Who said anything about staffs?" asked Jack.

"Uh…my dreams," said Cassie. "A lot of them have had fighting with staffs in them."

"I'm starting to think that this is a bad idea," said Jack.


	12. Part XII

**Part XII**

Jack was in a foul mood the next morning. Even Teal'c was keeping his distance, after Jack had growled at him during breakfast.

It wasn't just because of the situation with Cassie. He had gotten even farther behind on his paper-work. He had received several polite, but increasingly firmly worded requests from Major Davis for him to submit his mission reports for his last three trips through the Stargate. Maybe he could get a copy of Carter's reports, and just put his name at the top. It wasn't like anything had happened. They seemed to be going through a bit of a lull. Anubis hadn't made any new moves against Earth since the destruction of Abydos. He seemed to be consolidating his strength among the System Lords, and the longer they kept fighting each other, the better Jack liked it. Up to a point anyway. The biggest weakness that the Goa'uld had was that they were always fighting each other. But once Anubis finished stamping out all opposition, he'd be more dangerous than ever.

There had been no sign of Daniel since then. No ascended guy popping in to chat—which Jack admitted was kind of a good thing. Daniel had only shown himself when the situation was very dire, but he hadn't even had a feeling that someone was watching. Nothing. Jack was worried. Daniel had been breaking a lot of the Ascended's rules there at the end, and they had shown that they could be ruthless with one of their own who did that.

He had just finished filing the serial numbers off Carter's reports: removing all the scientific gobbledygook, and adding some pithy comments about the number of trees he'd seen on the three worlds that they'd visited, when word came down from upstairs that there was a courier waiting, with a package that he had to deliver into O'Neill's hands personally.

* * *

When Jack got back to his office, fifteen minutes later, he had a package in his hands that looked to be about the right size for a report binder, about an inch thick. He removed the outer wrapping, and saw that he was right. The inner wrapping included a security seal, and the binder was covered with words like "Top Secret," "Eyes Only," and dire warnings about what would happen if it fell into unauthorized hands. There was a cover letter from Captain Finn that told him that only he, Major Fraiser and Major Carter were authorized to see what was in the binder. It was left to their discretion whether or not they showed any of the material to Cassandra. It was to be shown to no one else.

He broke the seal, and opened the binder to its title page: "Operation Initiative." He read over the brief mission statement. The Initiative was an operation whose goal was to capture "Hostile Sub-Terrestrials" for study of their strengths and weaknesses, with the aim to learn how to: A) Protect the public from HSTs, and B) Determine if any HSTs could be harnessed for use by the Armed Forces of the United States of America, to further its foreign and domestic policies.

Jack snorted. That second bit sounded like the same sort of NID bullshit that they had to put up with. No wonder this project had left a bad taste in Harris's mouth.

He flipped the page to the table of contents. Most of it seemed to be a listing of various HST species, in alphabetical order. Jack scanned the list, and wondered who named some of these things. Come on! Who would call something a "Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik?" How the heck did you even pronounce it? The last HST species listed was "Vampire." He flipped ahead to the indicated page.

What he read didn't really surprise him (other than for the fact that he was reading it from a classified, top secret, government report.) It was a re-capitulation of everything Harris and Russell had told them about vampires last night. He noticed that there was a reference to a video file, and looked back at the inside cover of the binder. There was a DVD in a pocket there. He transferred it to the DVD reader in his computer. When it started to play he was presented with the same sort of warnings about what could happen if he showed the contents of this DVD to any unauthorized people, or made any copies of it. It wasn't really all that different from the threats in the FBI warning on the DVDs that he rented. The menu let him quickly skip to the the section on vampires.

At first he saw what looked like a teenage kid, one who was a little too into the punk scene. He was stripped to the waist, had dark, spiky hair, and pale skin. He was lying on a table, with heavy restraints holding him in place. Leather straps were around his arms, wrists, legs, ankles, waist, chest, and neck. They seemed to be overkill for a kid that size. They looked sturdy enough to hold Teal'c. He had leads from various pieces of equipment attached to his head and chest. The room was harshly lit, antiseptic white. White floor, white walls, white ceiling, making the kid on the table stand out in sharp contrast.

There were men in white lab coats, monitoring the equipment, some of which Jack was familiar with. He'd spent enough time hooked up to their cousins in Janet's infirmary. "Electro-cardiogram is showing a flat line," said one of the lab techs, "But the electro-encephalogram is showing lots of brain activity."

Another man looked like he was trying to take the kid's blood pressure. "This isn't working; I can't find any pulse." He stuck a device into the kid's ear for a second. "His temperature is 24.3 Celsius."

"The capture team reported that he was showing fangs, and a distorted forehead when the grabbed him," said the third man, "but changed to look like a normal human, after he was knocked out. Looks like we've got another example of the vampire HST. Anyone remember to bring a mirror?"

"Yes, Dr. Angleman," said the tech monitoring the electro-whatsit-grams. A small hand mirror was produced, and Dr. Angleman proceeded to look at the kid's reflection in it—or tried to anyway. "No reflection, we have a confirmed vampire. We'll give this one the designation Hostile-10." He angled the mirror so that the camera could pick up the kid's reflection in it…but it just showed an empty table.

"Okay, let's get on with the vampire test procedures, picking up from where we left off with Hostile-6," said Angleman, who Jack had decided was the chief lab-guy. "Let's get out the holy water."

The next twenty minutes of video sickened Jack to watch. The lab techs did things to that kid that he wouldn't do to a Goa'uld…not even to Ba'al if he ever got his hands on that snake. They dripped holy water onto his skin, and watched it burn him. They cut him with scalpels, and measured how long it took for him to heal. They shone various lamps on him—ultraviolet, infrared, white light, full spectrum sun lamps, and more—which did, well, nothing. The kid—who didn't really look like a kid anymore, his face had changed as soon as the first drops of holy water had touched his skin; he had a bumpy forehead, yellow eyes, and, yes, fangs—had reacted violently to having a substance, that the running commentary made by Dr. Angleman identified as garlic paste, rubbed under his nose. They tested to see if he healed faster, or slower, if he was cut with knives made of silver, and various other metals and alloys.

The end finally came when they decided to see what would happen if they actually injected the kid with holy water. A syringe full of it was injected into a vein on the inside of his elbow. The kid had died screaming, as if someone had injected him with acid, until his whole body had exploded into dust.

Dr. Angleman seemed quite satisfied with that result. "It appears that we can make an effective anti-vampire weapon using a standard tranquillizer dart, filled with holy water," he told his companions. "Vacuum up the dust, and send it to the lab for analysis. Let me know if it's any different from the last one's." He walked toward the camera, reached out his hand toward it, and the recording ended.

Jack took a quick sampling of other vids on the DVD, and found more of the same. Scientists performing experiments on all sorts of things, some of which looked more human than others, but the more he watched, the more certain he became that the most inhuman things in those vids were the scientists themselves. Harris had mentioned that 40 of the people involved in the Initiative project had been killed, and Jack found that he wasn't feeling the least bit sorry for any of them. The worst were Dr. Angleman, and a woman, who was even more cold-blooded about how she examined the creatures, named Dr. Walsh. Part of Jack really hoped that they were among the dead.

He considered for a moment that this was all some sort of put-up job. The videos could have been faked. Nothing in what he saw couldn't have been reproduced by a Hollywood special effects shop. He'd have to have Carter take a closer look, see if she could detect any signs of fakery, but mostly that decision was just him being cautious. There was too much consistency in what he saw, and if the government was going to fake something like that, why not put a spin on it that made the government look good?

He went back to the binder. After the section on HSTs, was a section on the Slayer. He started out by reading an introduction that was written by Dr. Walsh:

_You cannot study HSTs for very long without hearing stories  
about "the Slayer." Most of these stories are so improbable,  
that we had dismissed her as a myth, a sort of boogeyman's  
boogeyman. What could be more terrifying to a predatory  
monster, than a human who looks like the most helpless sort  
of prey, but is in reality a deadly predator of monsters?_

_Imagine my surprise when I learned that not only is the  
Slayer real, but that she's been dating Agent Finn, and that  
I had given her a B- in the Freshman psychology course that  
I teach here at UCS, as part of my cover…_

What followed was some biographic information on Buffy Summers—nothing that made her look like anything all that unusual, if you ignored the the times she'd been suspected of arson, and killing people. Some of the incidents were annotated by Summers' explanations for what had really happened: vampires attacking the prom started the fire at Hemery High. A man she'd been suspected of killing was really some sort of serial killer robot, the fire that had destroyed a Sunnydale High science lab was really caused by some boys who had been trying to create the Bride of Frankenstein. Dr. Walsh had added her own cryptic annotation to that incident: "Contact Epps. May have information useful to 314."

The report on Buffy Summers included a description of an exercise in which she had evaded a squad made up of half a dozen Army Rangers, and Recon Marines for 42 minutes in a wooded area only a quarter mile on a side. Then it seemed that she got bored with running them all around in circles, and she "neutralized" them in 28 seconds.

There was a video of the final minute of that exercise on the DVD too, and Jack watched it. He couldn't believe what he saw. Not only had Summers evaded these soldiers, supposedly the best that the U.S. military had to offer, she'd done it while wearing a white coat. If that was any sort of indication of the sort ability that Cassie had developed, maybe he'd have to go a bit easier on the team that had let her sneak out of, and back into, her house the other night.

The final entry on the Initiative was a terse report stating that Walsh and Angleman had been killed, and that Colonel R. McNamara had been assigned take control of the project, and investigate their deaths.

Jack leaned back in his chair to think. He'd known Bob McNamara (he never let anyone call him Robert.) The Special Forces community was pretty small. They'd crossed paths a few times—back before Jack had ever heard of the Stargate—when he'd been working anti-terrorism in Europe with NATO. McNamara was a good, solid, soldier. His problem was that he was _too_ solid: too by the book; no imagination; unable to think outside the box. How he'd gotten into Special Ops was a mystery to Jack. SpecOps wasn't for people who couldn't fly by the seat of their pants.

He also remembered hearing that McNamara had been killed in a training accident, a few years back. He checked the date on the file. The "training accident" would have been a couple of months after he took command of the Initiative. Jack was all too familiar with "training accidents." Most of the SGC's casualties were reported to their friends and families that way. From what Harris had said about how the Initiative had ended it seemed that McNamara had managed to screw up by the numbers, leading to a major charley-foxtrot.

And now Cassie was being drawn into that world. Jack didn't like it. They'd rescued her after Nirrti destroyed her people. On the dark nights when Jack wondered if all the SGC's "training accidents" had been worth it, the thought of the new life that they had given to her was one of the things that made him answer "yes." And now it seemed that she was being pulled into a life that could be more dangerous than that asked of the soldiers who volunteered for duty with the SGC.

He didn't care what Harris said about it. Cassie hadn't volunteered for this, she'd been drafted. One way or another. If it wasn't WCI, it would be someone else telling her how she should use her new abilities. Well, not if he could help it.

For starters, he had to show the files from the Initiative to Janet and Carter. He was tempted to include General Hammond, Teal'c and Jonas, despite their lack of authorization, but he had learned long ago that the first rule of security was not to tell things to people who didn't need to know, and for now, none of them needed to know about this.

* * *

Janet and Carter reacted to the package on the Initiative in pretty much the same way he had. They both were appalled by the behaviour that they had seen in the videos, and that made them even more determined to keep the NID from learning anything about what had happened to Cassandra. They were not happy that at least one government agency already knew about her, but they didn't have any idea about what to do about it.

They were also both more open to the idea that the whole thing was some sort of fake. Their scientific training made them even less enamoured of the "it's magic" explanation for anything, than Jack. Much of what Janet saw in the experiments flew against all her years of biological and medical training. Organisms with the properties of the ones described and shown shouldn't have been possible. Carter couldn't believe the physics of it. How was it possible for something to be seen, but not cast a reflection in a mirror? What happened to the fifty or so kilo's of the vampire's mass, when it turned into a handful of dust?

Jack didn't think that they had enough information to be arguing about those things. "We've got to work with what we know, and for now, this is it. What about us giving Cassie the training that Harris seems to think she should have?"

"Whatever else, he does have a point about that. Cassie is a danger to herself, and others, if she doesn't learn to control this," said Carter. "Remember what you did to Siler when we were wearing Anise's armbands?"

Jack winced. "Oh yeah." Siler still had a tendency to flinch away from Jack if he passed him in a stairway.

"So we give her some training; teach her to control her new strength," said Carter.

"I don't like the idea of her learning how to fight," said Janet.

"None of us does," said Jack, "so we stick to non-fighting things, like T'ai Chi."

"She really seems to like the idea of having Teal'c teach her how to use a staff," said Janet. "I'm afraid that if we don't provide her with something more active than T'ai Chi to direct her energy into, she's liable to go looking for something on her own. Go back to sneaking out at night. If Teal'c can't wear her out, no one can."

"Do we tell Teal'c about this?" Carter waved her hand at the Initiative report binder.

"Not for now," said Jack. "I think we leave it up to Cassie whether she tells him about any of this 'Slayer' stuff. That's something else I agree with Harris about. She's the one that this has happened to. She's the one who gets to decide who knows about it."


	13. Part XIII

**Part XIII**

Janet watched through her kitchen window, amazed by what she was seeing. Cassie and Teal'c were in the back yard, each of them with a six foot wooden staff. The big man was backing away, barely managing to fend of the flurry of blows coming from her daughter. Cassie's staff was a blur of motion, almost too fast for her to see.

They had started out slowly, with Teal'c teaching Cassie the basic moves: how to hold the staff, how to block and parry, how to strike. He was still giving her pointers on her form, but it was all he could do to fend off her attacks now. What she lacked in style she more than made up for in strength, and reaction time.

Most of the time, he would make her slow down: go through the motions at low speed, training her muscles and reflexes into the most efficient motions; to get the most out of her attacks, and to put up the most effective defence, but at least once a session he'd let her cut loose, and come at him full force. After a couple of weeks he started wearing some protective padding when they did that. If Cassie kept improving at the rate she had been, Teal'c was going to have to start showing up in his full Jaffa armour.

This had been going on for weeks. Some days it would be Teal'c, on others Sam, or Colonel O'Neill. Teal'c was the only one who could actually give Cassie a challenge now. Sam focused on teaching Cassie to do katas and such. Jack took an entirely different approach: figuring that one of the things Cassie needed practice with was her hand-eye coordination, he taught her how to juggle. At first Janet had preferred the juggling to most of the other things that Cassie was being taught, but she developed the habit of juggling _anything_ handy when she got a little bored. One day Janet had come into the kitchen and found Cassie juggling knives. Her good, sharp, knives.

Harris and Russell had left Colorado Springs the day after their meeting at the hotel. Sam had been quietly tracking their movements around the continent. After leaving Colorado Springs, they'd spent a week in Spokane Washington, and then another in Drumheller Alberta. They were still criss-crossing North America, spending no more than a week in any of the towns or cities that they visited.

Janet still didn't like the explanation that they had given her for the changes in Cassie, but she and Sam hadn't been able to come up with any of their own that made any sense. Other than the measurable changes in Cassie's strength, stamina, reaction time, etc. she hadn't been able to find any underlying physiological change. None of it made any sense, but if she was going to believe Russell and Harris's explanation, she might as well start believing in fairies.

She had spent some time with Sam and Colonel O'Neill discussing the idea that WCI's "demons" were some sort of alien incursion. The Goa'uld liked to pretend they were gods, after all, and the Norse gods had turned out to be an alien race too. Why couldn't there be some other alien species that were mistaken for, in had inspired, the demons out of folk-lore? That theory hadn't really fit the facts they had, though. The Goa'uld, and the Asgard still operated under the constraints of physics. From what they read in the Initiative's files, that didn't seem to be the case with demons.

She had a lot more information now than what Harris and Russell had been able to give her. WCI had set up several Internet based resources for the new Slayers and their friends and families. Cassie got to chat online with other Slayers from around the world: both the newly called, and with Faith Russell, and Buffy Summers. Other forums had been set up for the friends and families of the Slayers: a mutual support group where they could talk with each other about the problems associated with their children's new calling. Some of the people involved in that had long personal histories of coping with a loved one being placed in danger. Dawn Summers was Cassie's age, and had been coping with the knowledge that her sister was a Slayer since she was twelve. Robin Wood's mother had been a Slayer, but she had died while he was still a very young child. The DeSilva family had known that their daughter Kennedy might one day become a Slayer since she was a child.

Some of what she learned frightened Janet badly. Other things gave her hope. Nikki Wood had died young, but she had had a child, and now that there were so many of them, it was possible for Slayers to have normal lives: go to school, have a family, and someday to die from old age.

She didn't learn much that satisfied her scientific curiosity about how the Slayers did the things that they did. Sam had had little more luck talking with Willow Rosenberg about the scientific underpinnings of magic. They'd had several long on-line discussions on the subject, going off onto tangents about super-string theory, zero point energy, multidimensional space, quantum fluctuations and a dozen other things that Janet couldn't follow.

None of which made her feel any better about what WCI wanted with Cassie. She didn't mind the physical training. Cassie did need to learn to control her strength, and being able to defend herself from an attacker was a good thing too, but the emphasis that was put on combat techniques only underscored that Slayers were meant to go in harm's way. That wasn't the life that she wanted for her daughter.

She looked out the window again. Cassie and Teal'c had switched to a drill in which she was using her staff to fend off blows from his. There was a quickness, and fluidity to Cassie's motion that made it look easy. Teal'c was pressing his attack, but Cassie almost casually deflected every blow.

She switched back to the offensive. Janet could hear the cracks of staff against staff as Cassie beat against Teal'c's defence. Teal'c raised his staff to fend off an overhand blow from Cassie, and there was an especially loud _crack_ as Cassie's staff broke against his. Cassie didn't hesitate for even an instant. She jabbed the sharp, broken end of the shard of staff she was holding toward Teal'c's heart.

Janet's breath caught as she saw Cassie strike Teal'c. He had tried to pull away from her, but he wasn't quick enough to evade the blow completely. She could see blood on his shirt as he fell back. Cassie stood frozen in place, not moving as Teal'c fell to the ground.

Janet pulled her eyes off the scene in the yard, and ran to get her medical bag. When she reached the back yard she could see Cassie kneeling beside Teal'c, holding her folded t-shirt over his wound. Teal'c wasn't lying all the way back on the ground, anymore; he was propped up on his elbows.

"I'm so sorry!" Cassie was saying. "I didn't mean to— I don't know how that happened!"

"It is all right Cassandra," Teal'c told her. "The wound is not deep. Accidents when training are to be expected."

Janet knelt on the other side of Teal'c from her daughter. "Let me see that," she said.

Cassie pulled away her crumpled t-shirt. Janet cut Teal'c's shirt open so she could see his injury. The flow of blood from it had already nearly stopped. "He's right. It's not too bad. You barely broke the skin."

"I didn't mean to," said Cassie again. "My staff broke, and I just…reacted. I didn't even think about it."

"You have the instincts of a warrior," said Teal'c. "You saw an opening in your opponent's defence, and you took advantage of it."

"I'm sorry!"

"One time, when I was Master Bra'tac's apprentice, his bashaak broke in a similar fashion, allowing me to strike a blow which rendered him unconscious. I am sure that had he witnessed today's events, he would be feeling some satisfaction that his student suffered a similar mishap."

Janet used some tweezers to pull some wood splinters from Teal'c's chest, and cleaned and stitched up the wound, with Cassie acting as her assistant. Teal'c rose to his feet after she had finished applying the bandage. "Thank you Dr. Fraiser." He picked up the pieces of Cassie's staff, tossed them to her, and then grabbed his own. "When broken, your staff becomes two weapons," he told Cassie.

"If you pull your stitches, I will _not_ be happy," said Janet.

"Uh, yeah," said Cassie. "Maybe we should call it a day."

"After a mishap, it is important to…get back on the equine," said Teal'c.

Cassie's brow creased. "You do that deliberately, don't you?"

Teal'c tried to look innocent. "Moi?"

"Colonel O'Neill's having a very bad influence on you," said Janet.

"Indeed," said Teal'c. "Now, defend yourself, Cassandra." He swung his staff at her head. Cassie deflected it with the shard of staff in her left hand.

Janet seemed to drop out of both Teal'c and Cassie's attention as he attacked her. She shook her head as she watched them, seeing the muscles ripple under Teal'c's skin. "Down girl," she told herself, and shifted her attention to Cassie, now wearing just her sports bra, and shorts, a light sheen of sweat showing on her skin as she fended off Teal'c's advance.

* * *

There were no more incidents like the one with the broken staff, partially because Teal'c started wearing chest protection. Cassie had developed a new hesitancy to her attacks, which Teal'c strongly berated her for. He would not accept anything from her that he did not think was her best.

WCI had started inviting the new Slayers to come visit Cleveland, one or two at a time, from the start of August. Cassie had been the first invited, but neither Janet, Jack, nor Sam could get leave on such short notice—not without telling General Hammond what was going on, anyway—and there was no way that they were going to let Cassie take the trip alone. It wasn't until the last week of August that Janet managed to get a week's leave approved, to take a bit of a "vacation" with Cassie.

Their flight from Denver landed in Cleveland just after six in the evening. They were met in the terminal by a red-headed girl wearing a red wool cap, despite the warm weather. "Hi!" she greeted Cassie and Janet. "I'm Vi. Welcome to Cleveland!"

"Hi Vi!" said Cassie. "Good to finally meet you!"

Janet recognized the girl. They had been emailed a picture of her when the arrangements for the trip were being made. "Hello Vi."

"Oh, let me get that, Dr. Fraiser," said Vi, reaching to take her bag. "I'll carry it out to the car for you."

"Thank you, Vi."

"No problem. Like Xander says, 'super strength comes in handy when there's stuff that needs to be lugged around.'"

* * *

Janet was very glad when the car finally pulled into the parking lot of a Travelodge hotel in Akron. Vi had chattered the whole drive from the airport, hardly seeming to pay any attention to the road, or the traffic. She talked about the five months leading up to the destruction of Sunnydale, becoming a Slayer, the Cleveland Hellmouth—which wasn't actually in Cleveland, it turned out. No one had been dumb enough to build a city on top of this Hellmouth, or at least there hadn't been any powerful sorcerers planning an Ascension, to found a town on top of it. The Cleveland Hellmouth was really located in a remote corner of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park that hardly anyone ever visited—which was why they were now in Akron. It was just as close to the Hellmouth, and WCI had managed to find space here that suited their needs better than the temporary offices that they had originally settled into in Cleveland.

Vi mentioning Ascension got Janet's attention, but it didn't take her very long to discover that what Vi was referring to had little or no relationship to what had happened to Daniel. He hadn't transformed into a giant demon snake after all.

"I wasn't there for it," Vi finished up, as she carried Janet's bag up to the hotel lobby reception desk. "You really ought to talk to Xander about it…though it would probably be best to do it when Faith isn't around."

"Why's that?" asked Janet.

"I really can't say," said Vi, which Janet took to mean that she wouldn't say. She couldn't ask about it, because they had reached the reception desk. Vi smiled at the man behind the desk. "Hi Rob, we've got a couple more visitors. They've got a reservation under the name Fraiser. It's going on WCI's tab."

Vi escorted them to their room, after they got checked in to the hotel. She checked her watch, after placing Janet's bag on her bed. "Okay, you've got almost an hour to freshen up a bit. Principal Wood is going to meet you at eight for dinner in the hotel restaurant."

* * *

Cassie spotted Faith, before she saw the others with her. There was something about another Slayer that stuck out in a crowd…not that the restaurant was very crowded. The booth Faith was sitting in, along with with Xander, and a tall, good looking black man that she took to be Mr. Wood, had lots of clear space around it. He rose to his feet as the hostess led her and her mother to the table.

He extended his hand to her mother. "Dr. Fraiser, I'm pleased to finally meet you. I'm Robin Wood."

Janet shook his hand. "And I, you, Mr. Wood."

He indicated some vacant seats at the table. "Please, call me Robin. Would you care for anything to drink?"

Cassie took the seat beside Faith. "A coke would be good."

"I'll just have a water," Janet told the hostess.

"Very well." She gave Janet and Cassie their menus. "Your waiter will be here in a moment. Enjoy your meal." She left.

They spent the first part of the meal just getting acquainted, without talking about Slayers, vampires, demons, or anything else supernatural. The real reason for their visit to Akron didn't come up until they were having their coffees, and desserts. "You know, that's one of the great things about being a Slayer," said Faith as Cassie ate her slice of Triple Chocolate Delight Cheesecake. "None of us ever seem to get fat, no matter what we eat."

"The opposite seems to be true, too," said Xander. "You can eat like birds, and your energy levels never seem to drop."

"So, why are we here, Robin?" asked Janet.

"First of all, we would like to discuss Cassie's education," said Mr. Wood. "The Old Council was pretty much destroyed, and we are rebuilding from scratch. The new situation, with so many Slayers, gives us an opportunity to change the way things are done. Throughout most of recorded history there was only one Slayer, and the Council was set up to support her." That got a snort from Faith. "How good a job it did, is subject to debate."

"Most of the debate is over just where on the scale of badness to place them," said Xander.

"Yes," said Mr. Wood, "but that is not relevant to our current discussion. Because we are having to recruit new people for the Council, and those that we are recruiting still need to be trained, anyway, we have an opportunity. With so many new Slayers, we are planning to train _them_ to take over many of the roles that had traditionally gone to the Watchers."

"What sort of jobs?"

"Research, translations of ancient manuscripts, training new Potential Slayers." Mr. Wood shrugged. "There are many possibilities."

"What if Cassie wants to go to medical school?" asked Janet, causing Cassie to cringe a bit. Janet had been sort of pushing her that way for a while now. Cassie really hadn't wanted to tell her that she wasn't interested in becoming a doctor.

"Slayer is a high risk job," said Wood. "We need doctors who know what the risks are, and who can treat mystical injuries that normal hospitals can't…which brings me to something else we wanted to discuss with you. Would you be interested in a career change, yourself, Dr. Fraiser?"

"Me?" Janet seemed genuinely surprised by the offer.

"Your résumé is quite impressive," said Mr. Wood. "You are a trauma surgeon, with sub-specialities in virology, genetics, and half a dozen other fields. Someone with your expertise could be invaluable to us."

"I'm also an Air Force officer," said Janet.

"We were rather curious about that," said Mr. Wood. "What's someone with your background doing in your current posting? Surely there is little use for someone of your talents buried under a mountain in Colorado."

Cassie watched her mother trot out the standard answer for that question: "In the event of an emergency, the NORAD infirmary has to be ready to treat any and all medical conditions. We hope that it will never be required for such, but we have to be prepared for the worst. In the meantime, it gives us a first class research and training facility. I am very happy where I am." At least her answer made more sense than the "Deep Space Radar Telemetry" story that most of the rest of the SGC was stuck with.

"Even if you aren't interested, the possibilities are wide open for Cassie. "You name it, we can probably use it. Doctors, lawyers, managers, computer scientists…"

"Astro-physicists?" asked Cassie. _Sam_ had been nudging her in that direction.

"Sure," said Wood. "Some of our people are trying to get an understanding of the underlying scientific principles of magic. We are ready to offer you a full scholarship to study pretty much any subject you're interested in."

"Where?" asked Janet.

"The Old Council was primarily a British organization, and as such, we have our best ties with their universities. If Cassie can meet their academic standards, we can get her into Oxford, or Cambridge."

"_If_ I can meet their standards," said Cassie.

"We've seen your school transcripts," said Mr. Wood. "That shouldn't be a problem for you."

Janet turned her attention to Xander. "What's your role in all this?"

Xander shrugged. "I'm the guy who gets the donuts."

"Hey, don't sell yourself short!" said Faith.

"I don't!" said Xander. "Donuts are an integral part of Slaying. Sending out a Slayer without her daily minimum dosage of sugary goodness is never a good thing."

"Ignore him," said Faith. "There's no one I'd rather have watching my back in a fight than Xander."

Cassie could sense Faith's sincerity, even as Xander tried to shrug off her compliment. She'd spent enough time around SG-1, and other soldiers of the SGC to know that there was really no higher compliment that she could pay to a person.

* * *

The second reason for their visit to the Hellmouth came later that night. Robin Wood pulled the van he was driving over to the side of the road, just outside of the gate to the Northlawn Cemetery, near the border of the park.

Cassie felt a chill as she got out of the van, despite the warmth of the summer night. "Now, remember," Xander told her. "You're just here to watch. Let Faith and Vi handle the vampire."

"A vampire is really going to rise from its grave tonight?" asked her mom.

"We're pretty sure," said Xander. "He was definitely a vampire victim. Cause of death was blood loss, through puncture wounds in his neck. We're less sure about whether or not he was turned. The autopsy showed someone else's blood in his mouth and stomach, so we know that a vamp tried to sire him. Some of them don't always get it right though, especially the young ones. We got the vamp that we think killed him last night, and he was only about ten years old. Not experienced enough to get the timing down right all the time."

Xander reached into the bag he was carrying, and pulled out a couple of large crosses, and water pistols. He gave one of each to Cassie and Janet. He pulled out some stakes that got distributed among the others, and he stuck one into his belt.

Janet looked dubiously at her cross. "Uh…don't you have to believe in these for them to work?"

"That's a myth," said Xander. "If they work for a Jewish Wiccan, I figure they'll work for anyone."

"The cross is an ancient symbol for the sun, predating Christianity," said Mr. Wood, as he opened the cemetery gate. "And in magic, a symbol can act as a stand-in for the thing that it symbolizes. It doesn't work as well as the real thing, but all vampires fear a cross, and and will be burned by it, if they touch it."

"I figure that the cross won out over the fish in the early Christian argument over what their symbol should be, because if you wave a fish at a vampire, it just looks at you like you're crazy."

"So what are we supposed to do with them?" asked Cassie, holding up her own cross and squirt gun.

"Hopefully nothing," said Vi. "If the vamp gets away from us, and comes for you, hold up the cross and aim for its eyes with the water pistol. One or the other ought to discourage it."

Mr. Wood led them through the cemetery. There were puddles on the path, and the grass was wet from a thunder storm that had passed over the area earlier that night. "Uh…should we be quiet?" whispered Cassie.

"Nyah," said Xander. "The vamp's buried under six feet of dirt. It'd have trouble hearing us, if we'd brought a band along. Even if it does hear us, it'll just think that it won't have to go far to find its first meal."

They reached a fresh grave. Cassie shivered as she looked at it, and rubbed her hands over her arms.

"You feel it, don't you?" asked Faith.

"I feel cold."

"It's the vampire that's doing that to you. You're reacting to its presence. Looks like we're going to have a customer tonight."

"You feel it too?" asked Cassie.

"Not so much," said Faith. "Some of us sense them better than others. Most of us who spent too much time in Sunnydale can hardly feel them at all."

"Why's that?" asked Janet.

"Too much time living with the Hellmouth," said Faith. "It tended to drown out everything else, and it overloaded our spider-sense. Kinda like what too many rock concerts will do to your hearing." She nodded at Vi. "Nearly all the newbies can feel vamps better than I can, and I've got better spider-sense than Buffy. _She_'s almost completely deaf in the vamp detection department."

Cassie looked at Vi. "You feel it too?"

Vi nodded. "Yeah. If you close your eyes, and concentrate, you can probably feel the Hellmouth too."

Cassie closed her eyes, and tried to focus her attention on what she was feeling. She could sense something stirring in the ground beneath her feet, and something else in the distance. Something powerful, and evil, but far away. She pointed to the northwest. "That way."

"Pretty much dead on," said Faith.

"I thought you couldn't feel it," said Janet.

"I can't." Faith held up something. "But I've got it programmed into this." Cassie recognized a hand-held GPS unit.

Cassie looked back down at the ground. "It's moving."

"Yeah, it is," said Vi. "Time for you to stand back."

Xander and Mr. Wood pulled her and her mom back several yards from the grave. Vi and Faith stood over it, waiting. Cassie shivered again from the wave of cold that seemed to sweep through her.

The ground shifted in front of the headstone, and a head and shoulders pushed themselves up out of the dirt. Faith and Vi reached down, grabbed the man's suit shoulders, and dragged him out of the grave. They wrestled him down onto the grass, pinned his arms behind his back, and Faith slapped a heavy set of handcuffs onto his wrists. Vi had a set of manacles that went around his ankles. Faith rolled him over onto his back. "So, Doc, ready to take a look at your first vampire?"

What Cassie wanted to do was grab the stake out of Xander's belt, and drive it through the vampire's heart. Every instinct she had seemed to be screaming at her to kill that thing. She forced herself to keep those feelings in check as she came forward with her mother.

The vampire shouted obscenities and threats at them, his words slurred by the fangs in his mouth. Xander produced a stethoscope from his bag, and held it out to her mother. "So, you want to confirm for yourself that this guy's dead?"

Cassie didn't need her mother's confirmation. She _knew_ that the thing on the ground in front of her was dead, even if he was moving and shouting. His face didn't look very human anymore. His forehead was distorted, and he had yellow eyes.

Janet hesitated for a moment before taking the stethoscope from Xander. She placed it in her ears, and knelt by the vampire on the ground. She started to reach for his collar, to open his shirt, but the vampire snapped at her hand.

Faith took hold of the vampire's hair. "Be a good demon, and you might live longer." She yanked back, and held him firmly. "Okay, try it now."

Janet opened his shirt, and placed the stethoscope on his chest. She moved it around, listening carefully. "No heart sounds… Breathing is irregular… Just what he needs to talk." She placed a hand on his neck to feel for a pulse. "I don't see how this is possible."

Xander handed her an IR ear thermometer. "Want to check his temperature too?"

Janet did. "64.3…that's below air temperature."

"He's been in the ground for a while," said Mr. Wood. "Let him keep struggling like that, get him some blood to drink, and he might warm up into the 90s."

"Show her the mirror, Xander," said Faith. "That's the one that really convinces most people."

Xander already had the mirror out of his bag. "Take a look."

Janet took it, and tried to see the vampire's reflection in it. She saw nothing. She shook her head. "I still can't believe this. What do we do now?"

"Now, we kill it," said Xander. He pulled his stake out of his belt, and held it out to Cassie. "You want to do the honours?"

Cassie didn't hesitate. She reached for the stake.

"Cassie! What are you doing?"

"Mom, it's a vampire. It has to die."

"It's a sentient being. How can you justify just killing it?"

"You kill vampires for the same reason you put down a rabid dog," said Mr. Wood. "This thing is worse than any dog. A dog doesn't attack for pleasure. It doesn't plan its kills. It just does. If we let this thing go, it will kill. In all of recorded history, there has never been a vampire that willingly gave up killing."

"There has to be some other way."

"What?" asked Xander. "Lock it up and throw away the key? Keep it in a cage for eternity? It will keep living as long as you keep feeding it. A hundred years, a thousand. And then what? Keep it locked up for another millennium? Or we could try one of those nifty little mind control chips the Initiative developed. The one they put in Spike lasted about three years before it started to kill him. Of course, from what we managed to learn when Willow hacked into their files, Spike was the only vamp that the chip didn't just kill outright, or turn into a vegetable."

"Spike?" asked Janet.

"A government experiment," said Xander. "They put a chip into his head that gave him killer migraines if he tried to hurt anyone. He'd spent the previous 120 years as a vicious killer, though. One of the people he killed was Robin's mom. He also killed some of the kids I went to school with."

Faith pointed to the headstone. "This isn't William Downing anymore. This is the same sort of creature that killed William Downing. It needs to die."

"But—"

Cassie decided to put an end to the argument. She plunged the stake that Xander had given her into the centre of the vampire's chest. It exploded into a cloud of dust, accompanied by a noise like none she had ever heard before. Her mother looked at her in shock.

"It was a vampire, Mom," said Cassie. "And I'm a Slayer."


	14. Part XIV

**Part XIV**

Janet closed the door of their hotel room. "I can't believe you killed that man!" she whispered harshly.

"It wasn't a man, Mom; it was a vampire," said Cassie.

"Cassandra, he was helpless, a prisoner. Killing someone like that goes against everything—"

"But it wasn't a 'someone.' It was a some_thing_."

"Just because he wasn't human anymore— We don't kill aliens, just because they're not humans. Even something like a Goa'uld, we don't just kill, if we capture one."

"Mom, a vampire isn't an alien, it's a demon. It's worse than even a Goa'uld."

"How do you know that?" asked Janet. "We only know what they're telling us about vampires. How do you know that they're all killers?"

"I know it," said Cassie. "I _felt_ it, in every ounce of my being. When I saw that thing, I knew it had to die."

"And that feeling is because of what _they_ did to you," said Janet. "It all comes back to what they're telling us. I wish we had some other source of information about these things."

"There are those army guys," said Cassie. "They're not tied to the Council."

"But they're not independent of it, either. The Council has shaped their perceptions of these things."

"Yeah, they've moderated it," said Cassie. "When they were the Initiative they were doing all sorts of things to the demons, that the Council put a stop to. They aren't all 'Demon bad! Kill! Kill!' There are demons that they leave alone, too."

"So they say."

"Well, we're supposed to get to meet some of them, while we're here," said Cassie.

* * *

Vi picked them up from their hotel the next morning, to take them to the Council's Akron facility. The traffic was lighter on the roads that she took, which made her driving much easier on Janet's nerves. She took them to a wooded area, a few miles outside the city. WCI's Akron facility was a several acre compound, surrounded by high hedges, and a wrought iron fence, making its buildings invisible from the road. Vi rolled down her window, slid a plastic card into a slot, and punched a code into a keypad to open the gate to let them in.

Vi parked her car in a small lot to the side of the main building. They all got out, and Vi started to lead them around it. The building was a three storey tall block, that didn't look particularly appealing. It seemed to epitomize the worst aspects of mid-twentieth century architecture. There was a lot of construction going on around it. "We picked this place, because it's big enough for us, and its pretty isolated," said Vi. "But it needs a lot of work. It was built back in the 40s, and hasn't been updated since then. We're doing a complete renovation on it. Once it's done we won't have to put up our visitors in a hotel."

"This must be awfully expensive," said Janet.

"It is, but the Council has got a lot of money…or rather assets. We sold the property that the old Headquarters was on. That gave us more than enough to buy, and renovate this place. You wouldn't believe what downtown London real-estate sells for. That sale gave us our operations budget for the next five years, including buying and renovating this place, and our new British HQ."

"So, this isn't your main office?"

"Nope. It's still in Britain. Cleveland doesn't have the connections to the rest of the world. From London, you can get a direct flight to just about anywhere." Vi led them up the front steps into the main entrance to the building. "We're also trying to diversify. A lot of irreplaceable books and artefacts were lost when the old Headquarters was blown up. Mr. Giles still hasn't been able to replace even a tenth of the old collection. We're copying what we can of what he's found, and spreading them around the world. We've got a good start on our library here, and we're going to have more: one in Rome, another in Rio de Janeiro. Everything we can copy is going to be in all four places. The stuff we can't copy will be spread around, so one bomb can't take it all out."

They arrived in the main entry hall of the building. It was full of scaffolding, and everything was covered with plaster dust.

"Sorry about the mess, they just started ripping out all the old plaster in here yesterday," said Vi. "If you'd been here a week ago, it would have looked really cool, and Xander promises that it will look even cooler when they're done."

"Xander?" asked Cassie.

"Yeah, he's in charge of all the renovations, in between running around country finding the new Slayers." Vi guided them toward a door. "He used to work construction, back before Sunnydale was destroyed." She took them into a hallway that was clear of any signs of renovation work. "Anyway, we're all crowded into the back corner of the building while they work on the rest of it. Once they're done with the rest of the building, we'll move into the new sections, and they'll redo this one."

Vi pointed out different rooms as they moved back through the building, all the while telling them that they were only temporary. The "Library" was a large room that was stacked from floor to ceiling with cardboard boxes full of books. Cassie thought that if this only represented a tenth of their old collection, it must have been huge.

Vi stopped, with her hand on a doorknob. "You feel anything?" she asked Cassie.

Cassie hadn't noticed it before, but she was feeling _something_. A feeling of unease that had been rising as they moved through the Council's building. Now that Vi had drawn her attention to it, she knew that the cause of it was behind the next door. "Uh, yeah, now that you mention it. There's something in there."

Vi grinned at her. "More of a someone." She turned the knob. "Clem! We've got someone here to meet you!" she called as she opened the door.

There was a crowded office on the other side of the door, with multiple desks, and boxes of stuff piled up beside them. Someone—some_thing_— came through another door. Cassie heard her mother gasp when she saw him—it—whatever.

"Cassie, Dr. Fraiser, this is Clem," said Vi. "Clem, this is Cassie, and her mother, Dr. Fraiser."

Clem looked kinda like a Shar-Pei to Cassie. He had loose, wrinkly skin that hung in folds from his face and arms; large, floppy ears; and red eyes. He looked like he had been made out of wax, and then half melted. He smiled at them, showing pointed teeth, and waved a clawed hand. "Hi."

"Uh…Hi…Clem," said Cassie. The guy made her feel uneasy, but it was more like what she now felt around Teal'c, than the "kill it now!" feeling she'd had when she saw the vampire last night.

"Clem's from Sunnydale," said Vi. "One of their displaced demons. He's been helping us get set up here."

"So, you just happened to come to Cleveland, after you left Sunnydale?" asked Janet.

"I moved around a bit, but it's hard, for someone who looks like me," said Clem. "I can't really 'pass' in most places. A demon can get along okay in L.A.—you just have to pretend you're an extra on some horror flick filming a couple of blocks over—but it attracts too much of the bad element because you _can_ get away with it there. When I heard that the Slayers were setting up shop here, I decided to look them up, see if there was anything I could do for 'em."

"So, what do you do?"

"Right now, I'm mostly just helping out around the office, and meeting the new girls, showing them that not all demons need to be killed. Once they get more established, there's bound to be something else I can do for them. I don't need much: a place to crash; a steady supply of kittens."

"Kittens?" asked Cassie. "What do you need kittens for…" She looked at his teeth again, noting that they belonged to a carnivore. "Oh."

"Hey! Kittens grow up to be cats," said Clem. "Mean, nasty creatures, cats are. It's not like I eat helpless cows, or chickens, or anything like that."

"Uh…I guess when you look at it that way…" said Cassie.

* * *

They left Clem a little later, and Vi took them to another room, down in the basement. This one had a locked door. Vi entered a code into the keypad beside it, and swiped her plastic card through a reader. A small light on the keypad flashed green, and Cassie heard a heavy _ka-thunk_. The lock on that door was very heavy-duty. Vi turned the handle on the door and pushed it open. It was clearly taking quite a bit of her strength to do so. "Part of the security," she explained. "Even if you can get past the lock, only someone as strong as a Slayer can get this door open."

The room was nearly empty. The floor was smooth concrete. The walls and the ceiling were featureless, except for one light in the centre shining down on the object in the middle of the floor.

It looked like a huge black rock had grown out of the floor, and embedded in it was the Scythe that Cassie had seen in so many of her dreams. "Wow!"

"Yeah," said Vi. "Go ahead, take it."

Cassie felt a little nervous. "Can I? I mean it looks stuck there…"

"It's sort of a King Arthur deal," said Vi. "Only a Slayer can pull the Scythe from the stone. It took Willow a while to figure out the magic that the Guardians used to do that, but it seems to work pretty well."

Cassie slowly approached the Scythe in the Stone—she couldn't help capitalizing the title in her head. She reached out tentatively for it.

"Go ahead," said Vi. "It's not going to bite."

Cassie grasped the handle. She felt a surge of power flow into her, and the Scythe came free from the stone effortlessly. She held it in her hands, full of wonder. She spun it, listening to the whistle of its passage through the air. "This is amazing!" she breathed.

"Pretty cool, huh?" asked Vi.

* * *

They spent a week in Akron. Cassie got to meet and train with more Slayers. Vi, Rona, and Shannon were the girls who were permanently stationed there, keeping an eye on the Hellmouth. She was told that there were usually a few more, but at the moment, there was just her and Faith.

One day Vi, Faith and Xander took her and Janet for a hike off the paths usually taken in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, to the actual Hellmouth itself. They'd warned Cassie and Janet that they'd be going out into the bush, so they had both come prepared: Janet with a set of her woodland BDUs and combat boots, and Cassie with the clothes that she used when Sam would take her hiking in the Colorado back-country. They needed the outfits because the route they took was was overgrown by thorny brush that they had to force their way through. They finally came to a circular clearing in the woods, about a hundred feet across. The trees came to a sudden stop, giving way to a field of knee high grass. In the centre of the field was a fairy ring, about fifty feet in diameter.

"This is it," said Vi.

"Really?" Cassie looked around. "I thought that there'd be something…different about the place." There wasn't much to distinguish this from any other clearing in the woods. The way the trees came to a sudden end was unusual, but not unnaturally so. Cassie had seen fairy rings before too, even if this one was larger than most.

"Nope," said Faith. "It doesn't come with a big 'Here There Be Evil' sign."

"Well, Sunnydale's had the 'Sunnydale High School' sign," said Xander. "That's pretty much the same thing."

"I don't feel anything," said Cassie. "I could feel it, when I was farther away."

"We don't really have a good explanation for why that is," said Vi. "Willow thinks that it's kinda overwhelming our demon-sense, and causing it to shut down. If it didn't we'd be so freaked out by it, we wouldn't be able to function near the Hellmouth. On the flip side, we can't sense any demons or vampires when we're this close to it, either."

Janet started forward to the fairy ring.

"Just a minute," said Vi. "Let me go first."

"Is there some danger here?" asked Janet.

"No, we just leave some 'tells' behind, whenever we come up here," said Faith. "Little things that if they're disturbed, will show that someone else has been up here."

Vi had gone ahead, looking carefully at the ground as she went.

"What about animals?" asked Janet. "Wouldn't deer, or something like that disturb your 'tells'?"

"Most animals seem to avoid this place," said Faith. "Listen."

Janet did. "I don't hear anything." Cassie listened too. She could hear the calls of distant birds, but nothing close by.

"You know the old movies, where the forest goes quiet, just before the bad guys attack?" asked Faith. "It's always quiet here."

Vi had slowly circled the fairy ring. A couple of times she'd carefully stepped over stalks of grass that lay across it, so as not to disturb them. Xander was doing the same thing, going around the perimeter of the clearing, looking for any sign that anyone had entered it recently.

"So, you just use little bits of grass and things to see if anyone's trying to do anything with this Hellmouth?" asked Janet.

"Not only that." Faith went over to a tree at the edge of the clearing. "I'll be right back." She jumped up, and caught the lower branches, which were about twelve feet off the ground. She pulled herself up, and disappeared into the foliage.

A few seconds later she called out "Catch!" A couple of small items came falling down out of the tree. Cassie caught them before realizing what they were. She recognized a battery pack, and a memory card from a digital camera.

Faith dropped down out of the tree beside her. "We have someone come up here once a week to swap the batteries, and the memory card. The camera's got a motion sensor, so that it takes pictures whenever anything changes up here. It also takes a picture every few minutes, regardless of whether it detects any motion. There's three more, spread around here. Willow's planning to make a solar powered version, that uses a cell phone to transmit the pictures, so we can get real-time updates, and we won't have to come up here in the winter, but it's not ready yet."

* * *

Cassie and Janet spent their last day in Cleveland playing tourist, with the Slayers and Xander acting as their guides. They spent the morning seeing _The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame_, and then went to see the Cleveland Indians play the Toronto Blue Jays at Jacobs Field in the afternoon.

Cassie surprised nearly everyone when she bought herself a new Blue Jays cap, and t-shirt. "Oh, I'm Canadian, from Toronto," she told the surprised Slayers. "Mom's really my step-mom. My real parents…" She didn't have to feign sadness. "…are dead. Dad was an officer in the Canadian Air Force, assigned to NORAD." The lie was so well rehearsed by now, that Cassie almost believed it was true. "We were in a plane crash, in the mountains. My real Mom and Dad were killed." Again, there was no need to pretend to choke up at that point. "Jack—Colonel O'Neill, Sam and Teal'c were on the Search and Rescue team that found me. Mom was my doctor, while I recovered. I didn't have any family left in Canada, so Mom adopted me."

* * *

Cassie's training sessions slowed down after she returned to Colorado Springs, and school started up again. Things had started to heat up again at the SGC, so Jack, Sam and Teal'c didn't have as much time to work with her. Their summer lull seemed to have come to an end. Cassie didn't know what was going on, but her mother had started spending long hours at the Mountain, sometimes going for days without coming home.

She was a little surprised to arrive home from school one day, and see her mother's car already in the driveway. "Hey Mom! I'm home!" she called as she came in the front door.

"We're in here!" called out Janet, from the living room.

"Who's 'we?'" asked Cassie, as she came around the corner. She froze for a moment when she saw who was with her mother, her mouth hanging open.

Daniel Jackson was standing in her living room grinning at her. "Hi Cassie."

"_OhMyGod!_ Daniel!" Cassie launched herself across the room, and wrapped him in a hug. "You're alive!"

"Ooof!" grunted Daniel when she collided with him. "Uh, yeah. I didn't remember you being this strong…but then my memory still seems to have some holes in it."

Cassie let go of him quickly. "Oh! Sorry!"

"That's okay." Daniel looked at her quizzically. He got a distant look in his eyes, as if remembering something from long ago. He shook his head. "'From beneath you it devours.' Where did that come from?"

Cassie looked at her mom. "Uh…have you told him?"

Janet shook her head. "No, that's your call."

"What are you talking about?" asked Daniel. "Told me what?"

"That 'From beneath you, it devours' thing was kinda a warning about something that happened last spring," said Cassie. "Don't know where you got it from."

"Like I said, my memory isn't what it should be, at the moment, but things keep coming back to me," said Daniel.

"That's one of the reasons he's here," said Janet. "Meeting people he knew before, helps bring things back."

"But this feels different," said Daniel. "Not like a memory at all. It's just that phrase, and somehow, seeing Cassie, triggered it."

"What do you know about vampires?" asked Cassie.

"You mean, other than Bela Lugosi?" Daniel pushed his glasses up his nose as he thought a bit. "Well, most cultures have myths about such things, dating back to ancient times. Creatures that haunt the night, and drink the blood of the living. The Sumerian Akhkharu, North American Indian legends of the wendigo bear a striking resemblance to some Middle European myths…"

"Have you ever heard of the Vampire Slayer?" asked Cassie.

* * *

"Telling you all that was the other reason I invited you to dinner," said Janet as Daniel helped her load their dirty dishes into the dishwasher.

Cassie brought in a couple of empty wine glasses. "That's everything," she told her mom as she placed them on the counter. She took a cloth to go wipe down the dining table.

Janet moved the glasses into the dishwasher, and closed it. "For a lot of this stuff, we only have WCI's word for how it came about, and the history of the Slayer. I was hoping that you could dig up some more background."

"You don't trust them," said Daniel.

"It's not that…entirely," said Janet. "What was it that President Reagan said? 'Trust…but verify'? I want some independent verification for what they're telling us."

"Surely Sam has been doing some digging."

"Yes, but, frankly, a lot of this is more your territory—ancient books written in dead languages—and they know about Sam. We know that they discovered the first time that we started running background checks on a couple of their people, and we got ordered off. You might be able to fly below their radar."

"How below the radar do you want this?" asked Daniel.

"So far, only you, Sam, and Colonel O'Neill have been told the full story," said Janet.

"Not Teal'c? Or General Hammond?" Daniel sounded very surprised to hear that they weren't involved.

"They know that Cassie got stronger and faster—most of the SGC knows about that—and Teal'c has been helping to train her to use that strength, but they haven't been told about Slayers, or the Council."

"Are you sure it's a good idea to keep them in the dark?"

"No, but for the moment we've got orders to keep this closely held, and they aren't on the need-to-know list."

"Orders?"

"Apparently the government, and the Army, have been aware of these people for some time," said Janet. "We have received orders from on high not to inform anyone else about this."

"But you've told me."

"_Cassie_ told you," said Janet. "WCI has been very clear about that point: who Cassie tells is up to Cassie."

* * *

It wasn't just SG-1 who had less time to train with Cassie. She had less time available for such things herself, between school, homework, and other activities, she was finding it hard to squeeze in as much training as she would like. She started practice T'ai Chi during her free periods at school. She found that the slow, careful movements of the discipline helped her to relax, and improved her concentration. Some of her friends found her new obsession a little weird, but there were a few who joined her. Cassie didn't mind the company, but some of the guys were clearly not really interested in the exercise part of the activity. They seemed more interested in just watching the girls. Over time, some of her friends became regular participants, and got pretty good at it, while others dropped out of the sessions after just a few days.

So it didn't come as entirely a surprise one day, when she spotted a fifteen or sixteen year old boy watching her and a couple of her friends going through the T'ai Chi motions in the school quad. He looked kinda familiar, but she didn't recognize him. She thought that he might be the kid brother of one of her other classmates, but that didn't seem to be right.

Cassie turned to face the kid, while not stopping her exercise. "You want to join us?"

He shook his head. "Nope, I just wanted to talk to you for a bit."

"Do I know you?" asked Cassie. This kid was looking more and more familiar, and his voice sounded familiar too, but she still couldn't place him.

"Yes…no…it's complicated," said the kid. "I'm Jack."

_That's_ why he seemed so familiar! He really did look like a younger version of Jack O'Neill. "Are you related to Colonel O'Neill?" she asked out loud.

"In a manner of speaking," said Jack. "Look, why don't you ask your mother about me? Ask her to tell you what Loki did. You probably wouldn't believe it if I told you. I'll see you back here tomorrow morning." And with that, Jack turned and walked away.

"What's with him?" asked Cassie's friend Denise.

"I don't know," said Cassie, wondering how that kid could be related to Jack, and what her mother knew about it all. 'Loki' sounded like it might be the name of an Asgard. She tried to remember something about him from the mythology class she'd had a couple of years ago, but all that she could come up with was the Loki character from the Thor comic books. She remembered that he was one of the bad guys, but she didn't think that they were really that reliable a source. "Have you seen him around before?"

"Nope. He is kinda cute though, for a younger guy."

"Don't let Tim hear you talking like that," said Cassie. "He might get all jealous."

* * *

Cassie arrived at school early the next morning, her mind roiling over what her mother had told her. A renegade Asgard scientist named Loki had made a clone of Colonel O'Neill, only it had somehow botched the job, so the clone looked like a fifteen year old kid. But he was a fifteen year old kid with all the memories and experiences of Jack O'Neill.

She wasn't surprised to see the kid was waiting for her. She shook her head. She had to stop thinking of him as a kid, even if he did look like he was a couple of years younger than her.

"By the confused look on your face, I see that Janet told you about me," said Jack, by way of greeting.

"Uh…yeah. You're really Colonel O'Neill?"

Jack grimaced. "No. _Colonel_ O'Neill is still employed by the Air Force. They didn't really have a place for me. Heck, I look too young to even be a second lieutenant. No one would take me seriously as a Colonel. Even Carter wouldn't let me drink a beer."

"Mom said that you decided to go back to high school, but she didn't say it was this one."

"It wasn't this one, at first, but after a little thought, I decided to transfer."

"You can just do that?"

"Officially, I'm an emancipated minor. I tried to get them to set me up as an eighteen year old, but no one would buy it. Even the I.D. they set up for me, claiming I'm seventeen is pushing it."

Cassie gave him a skeptical look. "You're seventeen?"

"See what I mean?" Jack pulled his wallet from his pocket, and handed a driver's license to her. "See."

Cassie looked at the license, which did indeed give Jack a birthday in June of 1986. It looked pretty real to her, which she figured made sense, since it probably was real, as far as the DMV was concerned. If the SGC could get her a valid Canadian passport, they could get Jack a Colorado driver's license.

"So, why go back to school?" she asked him.

"A couple of reasons," said Jack. "Most obviously, no one would believe that that I've actually got an aeronautical engineering degree…same as they wouldn't believe a driver's license that says I'm eighteen. I don't come across as the Doogie Howser type. If Loki'd done this to Carter or Daniel, they could have pulled it off, but me? That's why I told everyone I'm doing it, anyway."

"So, what's your real reason?"

"You know, even the other me didn't get it."

"Get what?"

"In the last few years, a lot of people have accused me of living my second childhood. What they never understood was that it's really my first."

"Huh?"

"I was never a kid," said Jack. "From the time I was, well, _this_ age…" He gestured toward himself. "…I wanted to be in the Air Force. I wanted to go to the Academy, fly jets, go to the moon, and do all those other things."

"Sounds like the sort of thing that a kid would want," said Cassie. "And you've done all that, and more."

"Yeah, but for me to get there, I had to work damn hard," said Jack. "The Air Force Academy is one of the toughest schools in the world to get into. I spent all my time in school studying. When I was out of school, I was doing homework, or working on some project for extra credit. I joined the hockey team, because that's the sort of thing they like to see on an application, and I became a damn good player, but it wasn't because I really loved the game, not back then, anyway. It was because it would help me get into the Academy. I was forty before I noticed that I'd never been a kid, so I decided to make up for lost time.

"This time I decided to try being a real kid, while I look like a kid."

"So, why did you transfer?"

"Because, I discovered that being a real kid is boring as hell. I need to be _doing_ something."

"So, why here?"

"Something Harris said, when he was here." Jack grinned at her, looking very much like his older counterpart. "Every Slayer needs a Scooby."


	15. Part XV

**Part XV**

"A Scooby?" asked Cassie.

"Sure!" Jack guided her away from the path that led up to the front of the school, away from where anyone might overhear them. "Well…you can't actually call me that. I never much cared for that show, but…you need someone to watch your back."

"And you want to do that?"

Jack shrugged. "I can't help save the world from the space aliens anymore. Maybe I can help save the world from the monsters."

They'd reached a low retaining wall, and Cassie sat on it. "What do you mean?"

Jack sat beside her. "The WCI folks seem more inclined to take someone who looks like a kid seriously. From what they've told us, most of them _are_ kids. Harris and Russell are part of the 'old crowd,' and they've been doing it since they were the age I look."

"So, you're just going to apply to them for a job?" asked Cassie. "Why should they hire you? What are your qualifications? Going to tell them you're an Air Force colonel who got shrunk?"

"I wasn't planning on applying, so much as just doing it…with you," said Jack. "SG-1 doesn't have the time to train you properly, but I've really got nothing but time. I can work with you: teach you how to fight, how to use weapons; teach you about strategy and tactics."

"You'll do that?" asked Cassie.

"You betcha!" said Jack. "And while I'm doing it, I'll be watching your back, making sure that they aren't up to anything nefarious."

"Nefarious?"

"If you tell Daniel that I know what it means, the deal's off." Jack grinned at her. "I've got an image to uphold."

"What am I supposed to tell the Council about you?" asked Cassie.

"That I'm your friend, and I'm helping you out."

"And if they wonder why you have the same name as Colonel O'Neill?"

"The background they made up for me makes me my cousin, or something like that. We were both named after our granddad. And it isn't like either 'Jack' or 'O'Neill' is an uncommon name. There's even another Colonel Jack O'Neil in the Air Force, but he's only got one 'l'."

* * *

Janet had told Cassie to invite Jack to dinner that evening, so she did. He showed up on their doorstep at ten to six, with a bottle of ginger ale. "I still haven't been able to find a store that will sell me beer or wine," he complained. "I'm gonna have to get a fake fake ID."

Janet took the bottle from him. "Thank you, anyway, Colonel— Uh…" She looked uncomfortable. "Please, come in. Dinner's almost ready."

Jack entered the house. "Just call me 'Jack,' Doc. I'm not in the Air Force any more."

"Go on in, Jack," said Janet. "Everyone's in the living room."

"Everyone?" asked Jack.

"I invited Daniel and Sam, too."

Jack saw his former teammates rising as he entered. "What about Major-Me, and Teal'c?"

"Major-uh-you?" asked Carter.

"If he can call me, 'Mini-Me,' I can call him 'Major-Me.'"

"He felt it would be best if he wasn't here," said Daniel, "He and Teal'c are at the Alpha site, mediating another dispute between the Tok'ra, and the free Jaffa."

"Wow, he must _really_ not want to see me."

"General Hammond didn't give him much choice," said Carter.

Cassie came in from the kitchen, carrying three bottles of beer. She gave one to Carter, and the second to Daniel. Jack saw Carter frown when Cassie gave the third beer to him. He took a healthy swig from it. "Ahhh, thanks, Cass. That's good. You are now my favourite person in the whole world."

"It's the only one you're getting, so make it last," said Janet. "You may have a fifty year old mind, but your body is still closer to fifteen."

Jack found that he really didn't want another beer. The one he had gave him the sort of buzz he'd have gotten from two or three bottles, pre-cloning. Dinner was good. Jack had mostly been eating takeout recently. It was nice to have a home cooked meal, and with Janet as chief cook, it was sure to be something nutritious, as well as tasty. They all moved back to the living room for their after-dinner coffees while Cassie finished cleaning up.

"Did you learn anything about the Slayer, or the Council?" Janet asked Daniel, after Cassie had joined them.

Daniel set his coffee mug down on the table. "Very little. Jonas did a very good job researching WCI, I couldn't come up with much that he missed. I remember coming across references to them in the past, as sponsors for digs, and things like that, but nothing really concrete. They've always tried to operate quietly, usually staying out of the limelight when someone they've sponsored turns up something interesting. They were always willing to let someone else take the credit. There have been stories about some unusual artefacts disappearing from digs that they were involved in, but unfortunately, that sort of thing happens a lot, especially when you're working in third world countries. If anything, there was usually less pilfering from WCI digs than from others."

"What about Slayers?" asked Cassie.

"Nothing definite. There are stories about women warriors in nearly all cultures: the Greek Amazons, the Norse Valkyries, and so on, but they don't seem to fit with the Slayer story: they weren't one girl. There are just as many stories about individual women warriors, but again, few of them fit the Slayer pattern: they're usually stories about women leading armies against human foes, not the forces of darkness. Joan of Arc leading the French against their English invaders, Queen Boudica leading the Celts against their Roman invaders. Stories of women fighting monsters are much rarer."

"So no stories about the Slayer," said Jack. "So, maybe they made all that stuff up."

"No!" said Cassie. "That can't be true."

"Just because I can't match up the story of the Slayer told by WCI with any ancient legends, doesn't make her not real," said Daniel. "I can't link up little grey aliens with big eyes to the legends of the Norse gods, either, just by looking at the legends. Thor's supposed to be this really big guy with red hair, and a beard."

"But you figured out that the Asgard were aliens, from the legends," said Jack.

"I made a lucky guess," said Daniel. "If the Egyptian gods were aliens, why not some other pantheon? But many of the gods of legends seem to be just that: legends."

"That's not what you said at the time."

"I was putting the best face possible on my theory, in order to sell it to General Hammond, but if Teal'c hadn't come up with the gate address for Cimmeria, it would have gotten us nowhere."

"This is getting us nowhere," said Jack. "What are we going to do about the Council?"

"Do we have to do anything?" asked Cassie. "I mean…they aren't really doing anything are they? They've just come and explained what's happened to me. They haven't asked me to do anything that we weren't going to do anyway, other than that trip to Cleveland."

"We still want to keep an eye on them," said Jack. "And on you."

"Well, that was the whole idea with you training me, wasn't it?" asked Cassie. "So you could keep an eye on me?"

* * *

Cassie spent a lot of time with Jack over the next months, so much so that some people started thinking that he was her boyfriend…which they both thought was really weird. She had never really had a boyfriend who lasted longer than a couple of months. She thought that most of the guys that she went to school with were pretty boring. Some of them were okay, and she'd had some dates, and even let one guy get to second base with her, after they'd been going out for a month, but they hadn't gone any farther than that, and then they'd had a fight, and now he was going out with one of the cheerleaders.

She didn't see much of Jack while they were in school. They only shared a couple of classes: English and one math. He wasn't in the other math classes she was taking, or Physics or Chemistry. Jack was taking other things: History, Spanish, Geography and so on. Cassie knew that he was frustrating her math teacher. He just seemed to be coasting through the class—not really putting in much effort, just enough to get by—and he was still getting an A. Even though she knew the reason—this was Jack's second time through—Cassie felt a little frustrated by it too. She was having to work a lot harder than Jack to get the same result.

She was getting a better handle on her strength now, enough that accidents almost never happened. That let Jack teach her hand-to-hand fighting techniques, without having to worry too much about her breaking him. Jack also taught her how to fight with a knife, and handle guns.

Jack had almost no contact with SG-1, especially the other Jack. He'd sometimes see Sam when when she was with Cassie, but he saw very little of anyone else. The SGC wanted to keep an eye on him, but he was no longer in the loop about things that were happening offworld. More often than not it was Cassie who kept him up to date on the latest happenings, not that Janet or Sam ever told her much either, but Cassie could always tell when something important was happening: Sam might disappear for weeks, and her mother would spend a lot a late nights at the base.

Jack maintained enough contact with the SGC to arrange for them to get time on the Fort Carson shooting range, so he could teach Cassie how to handle firearms. Most of the time was spent teaching her gun safety, but she also learned how to shoot a wide variety of weapons, from pistols, through rifles and shotguns, up to fully automatic weapons like the M-16 and AK-47.

It didn't take long after being familiarized with each weapon before Cassie was shooting at an "Expert" level with all of them. She seemed to have a natural ability to quickly learn how to use any weapon placed in her hands.

* * *

February had been cold, but the skies were clear and sunny. There had only been a couple of light dustings of snow in Colorado Springs, but not enough to stick around. There was lots of snow higher in the mountains. Cassie's friends had been talking about going for a ski trip in the upcoming March break, and she wanted to join them. She didn't think that there would be any trouble getting her mother's permission. School had been going well, she was near the top of most of her classes and she was up to date on all of her assignments. Jack seemed to be on board with the idea too, and she knew that her mother trusted him to keep her out of trouble (though Cassie wasn't so sure why that was. The other O'Neill never seemed to have any difficulty getting himself into trouble.)

She arrived home on a Friday afternoon, determined to ask her mother for permission to go on the trip. She had it all planned out. She'd make a nice dinner for them to soften Janet up a bit first, and then mention the trip over dessert. She'd had a light lunch today, and was feeling hungry. She was a little surprised to see Sam's car in the driveway.

She dumped her school bag at the base of the stairs after entering her house. She saw Sam waiting in the hall, in her dress blue uniform. "Hey Sam! What's up?" Cassie's smile faded when she saw the expression on Sam's face. "Is something wrong? Has something happened to Mom?"

Sam looked sadder than Cassie could remember her being for some time. "Cassie I— I'm sorry."

Cassie was starting to get worried. "What's wrong? Is Mom hurt?"

"I'm sorry, Cassie. There's no good way to say this. Janet's dead."

Cassie felt like someone had hit her. "No. She can't be," she said, but she knew that was a lie. The expression on Sam's face told her that it was true. She still didn't want to believe it. "She can't be dead."

Sam stepped toward her. "I'm so sorry. I wish it weren't true, too." She reached out to wrap Cassie in a hug.

"No!" Cassie pushed her away. "_No!_" She spun around, and smashed her fist into the wall. "No! No! No!" She hit the wall again, and again, each blow making a new hole. She eventually stopped, when there was no more wall to hit. "What am I going to do?" she cried.

Sam came to her again, and this time Cassie didn't push her away when she hugged her. "You're going to be okay."

Cassie cried against Sam's shoulder. "What am I going to do?" she asked again, in a tiny voice.

"First thing, we're going to pack you a bag with a few things you'll need to stay with me for a while," said Sam. "I'm going to help you get through this."

"Why does this happen to me?" asked Cassie. "First Mommy and Daddy, and everyone on Hanka. Now Mom. Why does everyone leave me?"

"I'm not leaving you," said Sam. "And you've got your friends, and Jack…both of them, and Daniel and Teal'c. We're not leaving you. We'll never leave you."

"You can't promise that," said Cassie. "Daniel's already been dead once. You've all been hurt."

"But we've always come back," said Sam. "Now come on. We'll pack up the stuff you need for the night." She took Cassie's hand and led her up the stairs.

"What happened?" asked Cassie. "How did she die? Did it hurt?"

"It was quick," said Sam. "She didn't suffer."

Sam told Cassie what had happened while they packed up her overnight bag. SG-13 had been attacked offworld, and Airman Wells had been seriously wounded. Janet had gone with the rescue team, to stabilize him in the field, and been shot by a Jaffa staff weapon.

"What about Airman Wells?" asked Cassie. "Is he alright?" It seemed like the question she should ask.

"He's going to recover," said Sam. "Janet saved him."

"I wish…" Cassie stopped herself. She wanted to wish that her mother hadn't gone, hadn't risked herself for this Wells guy, but she couldn't. Her mother couldn't not have gone. "Was anyone else hurt?" she asked instead.

"Colonel O'Neill was wounded too, but he's going to be fine," said Sam. "The med people are already talking about letting him go early, he's making such a fuss."

Cassie smiled. Her mother had always complained that Jack was the worst patient she ever treated. Then she felt a stab of guilt. How could she smile now?

Sam finished packing a change of clothes for her. "Come on. We'll go over to my place, and I'll make you dinner."

Cassie shook her head. "I'm not hungry."

* * *

Cassie was surprised to see Jack sitting on Sam's porch, when the car stopped. "Daniel called him," said Sam. "We figured he'd want to know."

Cassie just nodded, without saying anything. She hadn't spoken since they'd left her house. She wrapped her arms around herself, and shivered from the cold. The temperature seemed to have dropped, and the sun wasn't giving her any warmth.

Sam grabbed Cassie's bag out of the back seat. "Come on inside. It'll be warmer there."

Cassie just nodded wordlessly again, and followed Sam into the house. She ignored Jack saying something sympathetic to her. It didn't matter. None of it mattered.

Cassie mostly just poked at her food. She managed to force herself to eat a few bites, but it seemed tasteless to her. She didn't pay attention to Jack and Sam as he got Sam to tell him what had happened. They didn't say much about her mother—they seemed to be avoiding that subject—he mostly seemed to want to hear about how the other Jack had been wounded.

They sat around after dinner, with Jack and Sam both trying unsuccessfully to get Cassie to talk. It only made her feel worse. She wanted to be left alone right now, but they wouldn't do that. She knew that they were doing this because they cared about her, and in a way that made it harder. Her pain was making those around her feel worse. It was all too much. She stood up. "I'm going to bed."

"Okay Cassie." Sam got up too. "I'll see you in the morning." She gave Cassie another hug. "I love you."

"Alright." Cassie shuffled off to her room. She spent enough time with Sam that it was like a second home for her, just as familiar as her own. She didn't bother changing into her pyjamas. She just collapsed across the bed in her clothes. After a while she rolled over onto her back, and stared at the ceiling.

Sam and Jack were still talking quietly in Sam's living room. Quietly enough that they probably figured that she couldn't hear them.

"She's taking this hard," said Jack.

"Can you blame her?" asked Sam. "This is the second time she's lost a mother."

"No, I understand," said Jack. "But we'll have to keep an eye on her for a while."

"You think she might—"

"No!" said Jack, "But after this…you know what I think about the shrinks, but she might need one of those grief councillors we've got on staff."

"Already on it," said Sam. "It's not like we could send her to a regular therapist. If she told him the truth about her life, he'd have her in a straitjacket faster than you can say 'event horizon quantum fluctuations.'"

"Well, certainly faster than _I_ can say it," said Jack. "What really happened with Janet?"

"It was pretty much as I told Cassie," said Sam. "She was hit square in the chest by a staff blast. It killed her instantly." She lowered her voice even farther, into a whisper. "We've got it on tape."

"What?" asked Jack.

"There's a film crew, doing a documentary on the program," whispered Sam. "They asked Daniel to tape what was going on offworld—take some pictures of 'some action' instead of just his usual rocks—and then Wells…he was afraid he was going to die, and wanted to say goodbye to his wife, so Daniel got out his camera. He was shooting Janet, treating Wells, when it happened. He's hanging on to that tape, and the General is backing him up, we're not giving it to the film crew, but I've seen it." Sam paused for a moment. "I wish I hadn't."

They were quiet for a while after that. The silence was broken by Jack. "Look Carter, I'll be going, but call me if you or Cassie need anything."

"Okay, Jack. I've got to go back into the base in the morning. We've got a weenie from Washington doing an 'investigation.' Could you come over, so Cassie won't be alone?"

"Of course."

"We're going to do a memorial service for Janet. I'm not sure when yet. Cassie will want to be there."

"That's good," said Jack.

"I'll talk to General Hammond. He'll probably agree to let you come to it too. You have as much right to be there as anyone else. I'll call to let you know."

"Thanks," said Jack. "I appreciate it."

Cassie heard Jack leave, and then she listened to Sam moving around the house, cleaning things up a bit. She heard her coming down the hall toward her room, and knew that she was going to look in on her. She quickly moved under the blankets on her bed, and pretended to be asleep when Sam opened the door.

Sam stayed in the doorway. Cassie concentrated on her breathing, slow and steady, in and out, nice and regular, like a sleeping person: willing Sam to go away and leave her alone. It eventually worked, even though Cassie didn't think that Sam was fooled. She rolled onto her back again, and resumed staring at the ceiling.

She listened to Sam getting ready for bed, and then the house went quiet. Cassie still lay there, looking at the ceiling.

"Screw this!" she said eventually. She got out of bed and went to the closet. She'd left a light jacket here a couple of weeks ago. She put it on, and went to the window. She slipped out it into the night.

It was cold, and Cassie's jacket wasn't really warm enough, but she didn't care. She started to run. She didn't pay any attention to where she was going. It didn't matter. She just ran. Before she knew it she had left all the houses behind. She knew where she was: she and Sam went jogging here all the time, though not at night. She was among the rock formations of the Garden of the Gods. She ran harder, choosing the steepest, most difficult trails, trying to wear herself out. She eventually came to a stop at the top of a hill. The cold breeze carried away little puffs of mist from her breathing. She looked back down, and she could see the lights of Colorado Springs spread out below her. She looked up, and she could see the stars. She could see the Milky Way splashed across the cloudless sky. She wondered if one of those little dots of light was the sun that had been shining down on her mother when she died. She looked below the bowl of the Big Dipper. Sam had told her that that was where Hanka was, but that star was too distant to be visible. She let out a wordless cry of rage at the cold universe around her. She wanted to kill the Jaffa that had killed her mother. She wanted to hit something, _anything_. She remembered something Faith had said, that night they'd met in the cemetery. It really was too bad that Colorado Springs was dead for the undead. It would be nice to have a vampire to beat up about now.

"It's a little late for you to be out here isn't it?"

Cassie turned toward the voice, thinking for a moment that maybe the universe had heard her silent wish, and provided her with a vampire, but it hadn't. She didn't feel anything when she looked at the man who had come up behind her. He was just a man. Scruffy looking, probably smelled, if the slight breeze had been blowing the other way. It had been several days since he'd shaved. There was something predatory about the way he looked at her, though. A year ago, a look like that, in a situation like this, would have scared her. "Go away," she told him.

"You alone?" he asked. "Maybe I should walk you back home."

"I don't want your help," said Cassie. "I'm fine on my own."

"You're really alone?" asked the man.

"Just you, me and the stars," said Cassie.

"Well, isn't that nice." His voice had changed. He sounded smug now. Cassie heard a _snick_ and saw the glimmer of light reflected off the blade of a knife. "No one but me heard you yelling earlier. No one but me will hear you scream."

Cassie felt her pulse quickening. It wasn't fear. It was anticipation. This guy wasn't a threat to her. She could take him easily, but… "Get out of here while you still can," she told him coldly.

"What?" asked the man. "You think I'm afraid of a little girl like you?"

"You should be," said Cassie.

"In your dreams, girl." He raised his knife threateningly, and tried to grab her with his other hand.

Cassie's hand clamped around the wrist of his knife hand, and she kicked him in the balls. The man doubled over in pain. "My dreams are of much scarier things than you." She brought her knee up, and smashed it into his nose.

She felt bones crack in his wrist. He dropped his knife, and fell to the ground. Cassie kicked him in the ribs. "I was wanting something to beat up. Looks like you're it." She kicked him again.

The man rolled over on the ground. Cassie pulled her foot back to kick him again, when he coughed, spraying the rocks with black dots. She froze. He was coughing blood. That wasn't good. She knelt down beside him, and rolled him over onto his back. He was barely conscious, and groaned in pain. Cassie quickly decided that she really hadn't hurt him that badly. The blood had come from his broken nose. He was breathing all right, if painfully: probably because of some broken ribs. Her moment of fear was replaced by disgust. Disgust with him, and with herself for what she'd done to him. She stood up, and looked around for his knife. She kicked the switch-blade farther away from him. "Stay here," she told him. "I'll call you an ambulance."

She knew the park. If she ignored the paths there was a parking lot just a few hundred yards down hill from here, and there was an emergency phone there. It only took her a couple of minutes to reach it. She dialled 911.

"911. What is your emergency?" asked the operator.

"Yeah, I'm in the Garden of the Gods. There's an attempted rapist about 400 yards west of this phone. He's been beat up pretty badly."

"Please stay on the line," said the operator. "May I have your name?"

Cassie ignored her. She figured it probably didn't matter, but she used her jacket sleeve to wipe her fingerprints off the phone, and the buttons on the keypad. She left the receiver dangling, with the operator still trying to get her to talk, and ran back up the hill to where she had left the man.

He was right where she'd left him. Cassie could hear the sirens from police cars and an ambulance when she got back to him. She looked back down the hill and saw flashing lights converging on the phone from opposite directions.

She waited for their sirens to stop, and for the cops and ambulance attendants to get out of their vehicles. "_Yo! Up here!_" she shouted, and waved, even though she knew that they couldn't see her in the dark.

A pair of cops started up the hill toward her, lighting their way with flashlights. The two men from the ambulance carried a stretcher behind them. Cassie sometimes whistled at them, to get them back on the right track, when they seemed to be losing their way. When they got close enough that they might be able to see her, she started to pull away, staying out of the range of their lights. She saw the cops' flashlight beams stop on the man on the ground, and they ran the last few yards to him. One of them knelt down to check on him.

"Don't forget his knife!" Cassie shouted from the darkness. The other cop's light swept around the ground until he found it.

The ambulance guys arrived, and began tending to the man. The cops turned their attention outward, shining their lights toward Cassie. "Why don't you come back here, ma'am?" called one of them. "We won't hurt you." His light swept through the darkness, looking for her.

"She's a crazy girl!" she heard the man say. "She tried to kill me!"

Cassie scoffed at that. "Yeah, right! After you pulled your knife on me."

"Please ma'am. You're safe now," said the cop. "You can come back."

"I was always safe," said Cassie. "I just wanted to make sure he didn't die before you found him." And with that, she turned her back on the cops, and ran into the darkness.


	16. Part XVI

**Part XVI**

Cassie had to evade the cops a couple of times on her way out of the park, but it wasn't hard. Their lights meant that she could see them long before they got close enough to see her, and she made a lot less noise than they did. It was still nearly morning when she got back to Sam's, eased her bedroom window open, and slipped through it into the house.

"So, you're back."

Cassie was startled by Sam's voice. She spun toward the sound and saw her sitting in a chair by the bed. "Sam, what are you doing here?"

"It's my house, remember? I looked in on you, a little after midnight, and was surprised to find you weren't here."

"I'm sorry," said Cassie. "I just couldn't sleep. I went for a run."

"Alone, at night," said Sam.

"I can take care of myself," said Cassie. "You know that."

"I don't care. I came in here, and you were gone. I was worried about you."

"I wasn't running away, or anything like that," said Cassie.

"I know, but you can't just go running off in the middle of the night, without telling anyone where you're going. You gave us a scare."

"Us?"

"Oh yeah." Sam picked up her cell phone off the table beside her, and hit a couple of buttons. She waited a few seconds for an answer. "Hi Jack. She's come back. … Okay, go home and try to get some sleep. … I'll see you in a couple of hours. … Bye." She snapped her phone shut. "You were keeping Jack awake too."

"I'm sorry," said Cassie. "But I couldn't just lie here looking at the ceiling."

"Cassie, I understand what you're going through, but you can't go running off by yourself like that. It isn't safe."

"I don't care."

"While _I_ do." Sam got to her feet and came to Cassie. She wrapped her arms around her. "I just lost one of my best friends. I don't want to lose her daughter too."

* * *

Cassie was surprised when she awoke in daylight. Sam had put her to bed—this time actually tucking her in after Cassie had changed into her pyjamas—before going back to bed herself. Cassie hadn't thought that she would get any sleep, but it seemed that she had dozed off.

She was also surprised to find young Jack in Sam's kitchen, reading the morning paper and drinking a cup of coffee, when she schlepped into it, still wearing her pyjamas. "Where's Sam?"

Jack looked at her over his newspaper. "She had to go back on duty. How are you doing?"

"I'm okay," lied Cassie.

"So, beating up that guy in the park made you feel better?"

"What?" asked Cassie "How did you know—?"

Jack turned around his paper, and showed her the headline: 'Police Apprehend Serial Rape Suspect.' "Seems he tried for the wrong victim, she kicked the crap out of him, and then called 911 for them to come pick him up. I was also in the park myself last night, and some cops asked me if I'd seen a girl."

"He pulled a knife on me," said Cassie. "What was I supposed to do?"

"You shouldn't have been there in the first place," said Jack. "But since you were…hell, if I'd been with you, I probably would have given him a couple of kicks myself. This guy is a real piece of work. He's suspected of half a dozen rapes, and some of his victims were cut up pretty badly."

"Does Sam know?"

Jack shook his head. "She had to leave before the paper arrived. You planning to tell her?"

"Will you, if I don't?" asked Cassie.

"No, but that still doesn't mean you shouldn't." Jack put the paper down. "If you tell her, she won't be much madder than she already is about you running out last night. If she finds out some other way…"

"I'll think about it."

"Why don't you go have a shower, and get dressed," said Jack. "It'll make you feel better. I'll make you breakfast."

"I'm not hungry," said Cassie.

"Do it anyway," said Jack, sounding like a senior officer addressing a raw recruit. "That's an order."

* * *

Major Janet Fraiser was buried with full military honours. Cassie's mother's casket was carried to the grave site by six soldiers from the SCG, while a Marine honour guard stood with presented arms. The Air Force Academy Chaplain presided over the ceremony, saying words that Cassie didn't really believe. The god of her childhood was a parasitic snake that had slaughtered her first family, and she had never really adopted any other. Janet herself had been an agnostic, not believing in any particular gods, but not rejecting the concept either. Cassie sat silently through the ceremony, trying to hold back her tears.

At the conclusion of the service, the honour guard fired off three volleys with their rifles. A bugler played _Taps_ while the flag draping her mother's casket was folded. The sergeant in charge of the casket team presented the flag to General Hammond, who in turn brought it to Cassie. He knelt on the grass in front of her as he placed it onto her hands. "Your mother was a friend, a colleague, and one of the finest officers it has been my privilege to command," he told her quietly. "We will all miss her."

"Thank you, General," said Cassie.

"If there is anything that I can ever do for you, don't hesitate to ask."

Cassie just nodded her thanks. The knot in her throat wouldn't let her say anything. General Hammond briefly rested his hand on hers, before he rose, and went to speak with Janet's brother.

Janet's brother Ron, his wife, and their two children had come to Colorado Springs for the funeral. They had been told that Janet had died in a medevac helicopter crash, while transporting a man who had been wounded in a training accident. Cassie didn't like lying to them about that, so she spent a lot of time avoiding them. They had never really been close, anyway. Janet's family lived in Baton Rouge, and Cassie had only met them a few times.

The Fraisers weren't the only civilians present. Jack was there, of course, as were several spouses of SGC personnel. One of them was a woman who looked like she was ready to give birth to a baby any day now. She was accompanying an airman whose stiff movements indicated that he was not long out of his hospital bed, and probably should be going back to it, now that the funeral was over.

Cassie wondered what her uncle, aunt and cousins would have said if they had known that there were aliens at her mother's funeral. They seemed to be a little uncertain how to react to the amount of military brass that had come: two Air Force generals; Air Force and Marine colonels; lots of lower ranking officers, and enlisted personnel, all in their full dress uniforms. How would they have reacted if she told them that General Carter was also hosting an alien symbiote?

Cassie felt conflicted by Selmac. She knew the Tok'ra were allies, and Jack seemed to like this one (whatever his feelings about the Tok'ra in general) but she felt a little nauseous whenever she was too close to General Carter. Her Slayer sense, combined with what she already felt because of the naquadah in her blood, made her very uncomfortable around the Tok'ra, and she wasn't completely successful hiding it. It was a good thing that she'd told Vi not to come to Colorado Springs when she'd made the offer after hearing about her mother's death. There was no way that another Slayer would be able to not notice that there was something _wrong_ about General Carter.

Bra'tac was there too, representing the Free Jaffa. He didn't make her feel nearly as uncomfortable. He felt just like Teal'c, and Cassie had gotten used to him being around. They were both dressed in similar dark civilian suits. Anyone who asked about the marks on their foreheads was told that they were Mozambican tribal tattoos.

People started to pass by, stopping briefly to offer their condolences, and then continuing on their way, slowly filtering away from the graveside, back toward their cars in the parking lot. Cassie didn't recognize most of them. The airman with the pregnant wife stopped in front of her. He couldn't meet her gaze, at first.

Cassie spoke first. "Thank you for coming. I can see this is hard for you."

"I had to be here," said Airman Wells. "They wouldn't let me out of bed, to come to the memorial in the base. Major Fraiser…It's my fault she's dead."

Cassie shook her head. "No it's not."

"If I hadn't been hurt—"

"It wasn't your fault," said Cassie. "You didn't—" She had to stop herself from saying 'shoot her.' There were too many people around who didn't know how her mother had really died. "You didn't make the helicopter crash."

"But if it wasn't for me, she wouldn't have been there."

Sam had come over to join them. "She was there because she was a doctor, and an officer, Airman," she said. "Janet was there because it was her duty as an officer, a physician, and a human being. Even if she had known what was going to happen to her, she still would have been there. That's the sort of person she was."

Airman Wells had straightened himself up, like he was coming to attention, on Sam's approach—not that he had been slouching before. "Yes Major."

"I don't blame you," said Cassie. "I blame— you know." She looked toward Wells' wife. "If you feel you have anything to pay back to my mom…pay it forward. Be a good Dad to your baby. Mom couldn't ask for more."

"Yes ma'am," said Wells.

* * *

There was a gathering at Cassie's house after the funeral. She couldn't help thinking that it really was _her_ house now. It had been 'hers' for years, but now she really owned it. Janet Fraiser's will had left nearly everything to her. Some family heirlooms had gone to her brother and his family, but everything else was Cassie's now. She didn't know what she was going to do with any of it.

People came bearing food. More food than could possibly be eaten by them, and the others who had come. Cassie was a little overwhelmed by all the visitors. The SGC must have been running on a skeleton staff, and there were others: people who had known Janet before she joined the SGC; friends from medical school; others who had known her before she joined the military; Some of Cassie's friends from school, and their parents. It was hard keeping them all straight in her head. It was hard to keep repeating the lie about how her mother had died.

Jack and Colonel O'Neill were avoiding each other. It was kind of interesting to see how they always seemed to keep as far away from each other as possible. If one of them entered a room, the other would soon exit it. It was like there was some sort of Conservation of O'Neills law at work. Seeing Colonel O'Neill suddenly break off a conversation with Daniel, and head for the kitchen was all Cassie needed to see to know that Jack had come into the living room from the front hall, so she wasn't at all surprised to hear him ask "How are you doing?" from behind her.

She turned toward him. "I'm getting kinda tired of people asking me how I'm doing."

He shrugged at her. "I'm sorry, but it means that you've got a lot of people who care about you."

"I know, but…how am I supposed to answer that? Am I supposed to tell them I'm doing okay, 'cause I really don't think I am. I mean…sometimes I'm okay, but then I remember that Mom's gone, and never coming back, and I just want to go cry by myself in a corner, but she wouldn't want me to do that, so I have to go on, but it's hard."

"I know it's hard," said Jack, "but it gets easier. Every day it gets a bit easier. You're always going to miss her, but after a while you stop thinking so much about how bad it is that she isn't here anymore, and start remembering more about the good times you had together." He stopped and thought for a bit. "Do you think about your first parents?"

"Of course," said Cassie.

"What do you remember about them?"

Cassie smiled sadly at him. "Good things… they always made me feel safe. Mommy was always ready with a hug and a kiss when I scraped my knee playing. She made wonderful nobtail soup. She had the sweetest smile. Daddy would carve me toys, from pieces of wood. He was big and strong, and the gentlest man I knew."

"You still miss them, but their being gone doesn't hurt as much as it used to," said Jack. "The same will happen with Janet. You'll always miss her, but the hurting will get less as time goes by, and soon, you'll be remembering the happy times you had with her."

"I guess," said Cassie.

"Trust me," said Jack. "It just takes time, and some help from your friends."

* * *

Jack was right. Things did get better, with time. Janet's funeral had come at the end of the week after her death, and the beginning of the spring break from school. Sam had taken leave to help Cassie with the transition.

Cassie moved in with Sam. Her Uncle Ron had offered to take her back to Baton Rouge, to stay with him and his family, but Cassie wanted to stay in Colorado Springs. All of her friends were there. Her uncle didn't put up any argument, once he satisfied himself that Sam really wanted Cassie to come live with her permanently. He stayed on another week, after his wife and children had returned to their home to help settle Janet's affairs.

Cassie, Sam and Ron went through the house together, picking out the things that Cassie wanted to take to Sam's, what Ron wanted to keep, what to put into storage, and what to toss out, or give to Good Will. They decided that house itself would be rented. Janet had had life insurance on her mortgage, so it belonged to Cassie now, free and clear, so the rent only had to cover the property taxes, and general maintenance costs. There was always someone temporarily assigned to the SGC who was looking for an affordable place to stay, and renting the house to one them meant that Sam would be able to do a much more thorough background check on any prospective tenant than if they rented it to a member of the general public.

* * *

Cassie threw herself into her school work and training, after the spring break was over. Anything to keep her mind off how much she was missing her mother. In addition to her regular school work, there was the extra paperwork needed for her applications to university. She had applied to several, including Colorado State, Stanford and Caltech, plus, with Council support, she had applied to Oxford and Cambridge in England.

She wasn't alone applying to the English universities. Jack applied to them too. It hadn't been easy explaining Jack to the Council. Part of his knowledge of things military had been explained by the history that the SGC had manufactured for him. According to it, he was an Air Force Brat, and had travelled all over the world with his father as he had moved from one posting to another. He had picked up bits of several languages during that time, as well as learning things like how to handle weapons, and fly an airplane. Jack was a little miffed that the SGC hadn't supplied him with a pilot's license that actually matched his qualifications, but it would be a bit difficult to explain how a seventeen year old kid managed to get in enough flying hours to earn instrument and multi-engine ratings, to say nothing about flying Air Force jets (and a space ship or two.) Major Davis had told him that he should be happy with the private pilot's license they'd given him.

Cassie started going out evenings, to patrol the cemeteries. Sam didn't like it, but she was away too often to stop her, and had realized the futility of trying. So they had come to a compromise: Jack came along with her.

He was good company for the mood she was in. He knew when to keep quiet, and he also seemed to know when he should say something: a joke or a sarcastic comment, when she was slipping too deep into broodiness.

He also didn't let her just wander around at random. He prepared maps of the areas that they wanted to patrol, and they planned each evening before going out. They developed a routine which ensured that each of the local cemeteries, parks, and warehouse districts was checked on a regular basis, but not too regular. They kept changing the order around so that if anyone was observing her, they wouldn't be able to predict her future movements. He taught her the hand signals to use so they could communicate silently with each other when out on patrol.

Cassie always stopped by her mother's grave, on the nights that their patrols took them to that cemetery. It seemed a little silly to her, but she always told her mother how things had been going. How things were with school, what Sam told her about what was happening with the SGC, how three different guys had asked her to the Prom, though she hadn't decided if she was going or not. It made her feel better to be able to say those things, even though her mother couldn't hear her anymore. But there was a chance that she could. She knew from both Daniel's experience, and from what she learned from the Council, that sometimes the dead _could_ still look in on the living.

Most of her nightly patrols were just an opportunity to burn off a little excess energy, while having time to sort through her feelings about how everything had changed in the last year. It had been nearly a year now since she had first heard the call. A year in which her entire life had been turned upside down. A year ago, she'd have been at home most evenings, doing her homework, talking about guys on the phone with her friends. Telling her mom how her day had been. She still did her homework, and talked about guys with her friends, but after that she went out to patrol the local cemeteries. Now she talked to her mother's tombstone.

Jack always gave her lots of space when she stopped by her mother's grave. She knew that he understood how she felt. There were graves that he visited too: Charlie O'Neill's, Charles Kawalsky's, graves of other people who had died in the service of the SGC. He sometimes had some things to say to the dead as well.

Tonight they weren't in any of the cemeteries that held any of their ghosts. They were checking out some old factories near the airport, looking for any sign that something might have take up residence there. They had been here on other nights, and found nothing, but Cassie had a feeling that that was about to change. She couldn't explain why, but she somehow knew that tonight would be different.

She and Jack were moving quietly through an alley between a couple of abandoned warehouses when she felt it: the same chill she had felt in that cemetery in Cleveland. She knew that there was a vampire nearby. Maybe more than one. She signalled for Jack to stop. She stood in the alley, trying to feel where the vampires were. The feeling seemed to be coming from the building to her left. She signalled for Jack to wait where he was, and climbed swiftly up a pile of crates, to look in a window.

The glass was too coated with grime to see anything through, but there was a broken pane in the window that gave her a clear view of the interior. It also let her hear what was being said inside.

"Why have we come here?" asked one voice. "This town is dead."

"Exactly," said a second voice. "We can lay low here for a month or two. Once things blow over in L.A. we can go back."

"But why _here_? Why not go someplace fun? I hear that things are picking up in Cleveland."

"Yeah, and every vamp that goes anywhere near there ends up dust inside a week. There's nothing in Colorado Springs. We can lay low here for a while, clean a few homeless people off the streets, and wait for whatever's going down between Blackthorn, and Wolfram and Hart to blow over."

Cassie could see the two vampires, in the middle of the warehouse floor. She couldn't see anyone else. She reached out with her other senses, feeling for anything else, but she felt nothing. There was just the two of them.

"This'll be a good place for us to hole up, during the day." The vampire that seemed to be the leader of the two pointed to the floor. "Look at all the dust. No one's been in here for ages. We can cover up the office windows, not have to worry about any sunlight getting to us."

"I'd feel better someplace underground."

"Get over it. Most places don't have the sort of sewer system L.A. has. Now come on, let's check out the office, and see what we need to make it habitable. Then we can go out and look for something to eat before dawn."

Cassie jumped back down to the ground, and told Jack what she'd heard. "There's only two of them," she whispered. "We can take them, easy."

"I wish I had more than a stick to use as a weapon," said Jack.

"Guns don't work on vamps."

"I know, but I'd like to see what a zat does to them. Maybe I can get Carter to swipe one for me."

"How's she supposed to do that?"

"I don't know. She's the genius. She can figure it out."

"Later," said Cassie. "Right now, we have to take care of these vamps."

"We need a plan," said Jack. "Maybe some backup."

"There's no time for backup, they were talking about going out to get something to eat tonight, and I have a plan." Cassie started to run down the alley.

"Oh for crying out loud!" she heard Jack mutter behind her, before he followed her.

Cassie found the door with a broken lock that the vampires had used to get into the warehouse. She waited there for Jack to catch up with her. "So, what's your plan?" he asked. "Ambush them when they come out?"

"Nope. They might use a different door." Cassie took a stake from her pocket, and held it so it was concealed by her arm. She pushed the door open, and strode into the warehouse, making no effort to be the least bit stealthy. "What do you think Jack?" she called loudly. "Would this place be great for our rave, or what?"

"Ah…I don't know," said Jack, looking confused for a second. "The lighting kinda sucks."

"That's what the glow sticks are for!" said Cassie.

"Can we get power for the amps?"

"What are you kids doing here?"

Cassie turned toward the vampire. "Oh! I didn't think anyone was here!"

The vampire smiled at her. She could tell it was thinking that it wouldn't have to go out for dinner after all. "Me and my friend were looking the place over. We need a space to store some construction equipment."

Cassie tried to look disappointed. "Oh…when are you going to be moving in?" She moved a little hesitantly toward the vampire, trying not to look like she was anxious to close the space between them. She hoped to get close to both the vamps before she made her move, but they weren't cooperating. The other vamp was moving to cut them off from the door, to keep them from running.

"Not for a couple of weeks." The vampire gave her a friendly smile. "I'm sure we can work something out for your party." He reached out toward her. "Why don't we go into the office to discuss it?"

Cassie was close enough now. "I don't think so." Her hand snapped out, plunging her stake into the middle of its chest. The vampire screamed as it turned to dust. Cassie felt her stake disintegrate in her hand.

The second vampire snarled, and charged at Jack, its face changing as it came. It leapt the last six feet, reaching out toward him with hands like claws. Jack didn't have time to get his stake out. Instead he seized the vampire's arm, and pivoted, using the vamp's own momentum to turn its leap into a hard slam down onto the concrete floor, with Jack landing on top of it. It would have knocked the wind out of a living man, but the vampire barely seemed to notice. It grabbed at Jack, and pulled his neck down toward its fangs. Jack hit the vamp with a head butt, and broke its hold on him. He tried to scramble away, but the vamp caught his jacket, and pulled him back down.

Cassie grabbed the vampire from behind, pulling it away from Jack. It tried to pull away from her, but she managed to hold it with one of its arms twisted up behind its back, and with her arm clamped around its throat. It tried to claw at her with its free hand, but it couldn't get hold of her.

"Stake it Jack!"

Jack had finally managed to get his stake out, and he stabbed it into the vampire's chest. It exploded into dust in her arms.

Cassie coughed, and slapped vampire dust from her clothes. She saw Jack glaring at her. "What?"

"Next time, please tell me the plan, _before_ you go charging in."


	17. Part XVII

**Part XVII**

"What's the big deal?" asked Cassie as she opened the front door of her house. "We killed them didn't we?"

"What if there'd been more than two of them?" asked Jack.

"I knew that there weren't. I could only feel the pair of them, and I listened to them talking. It was just them."

"You should have taken more time to confirm it," said Jack. "You didn't have to go charging right in. There was no one's life on the line. You should _always_ take all the time you can to think over what you're going to do, before you do it."

"You're just upset that I didn't tell you my plan."

"Yes. That's another thing that you should always do. Make sure that everyone on your side knows the plan."

"Okay Jack. I'm sorry. Next time I'll tell you my plan before I do it."

"I plan to hold you to that."

"Yes Jack." Cassie went to the phone. "Now, I'm supposed to call the Council to tell them that we've had vampires in Colorado Springs."

Jack sat himself down. "Go ahead."

Cassie pulled a card from her wallet to check the number for the Council's Akron office before she dialled it. It might be 4:00 am there, but this phone was supposed to have someone answering it 24 hours a day. Given the hours that Slayers normally operated, Cassie figured that they probably had more people standing by to answer phones now, than they would in the middle of the afternoon.

The phone was answered promptly. "WCI. How can I help you?" asked a familiar voice.

"Uh, hi. This is Cassandra Fraiser, in Colorado Springs."

"Oh, hi Cassie! It's Clem. How are you doing?"

"Pretty good," said Cassie. "We staked a couple of vampires tonight."

"Really!" said Clem. "We hadn't heard anything about vampires in Colorado."

"There was just the two of them," said Cassie. "I eavesdropped on them talking for a bit, before we killed them. They'd just arrived from L.A. They said something about getting away from there while something was happening between a couple of different groups. Wolfram and Hart, and Blackthorn."

"Did you say 'Blackthorn'?" asked Clem.

"Yeah," said Cassie. "And Wolfram and Hart. I'd heard them mentioned in some of the forums. Thought it might be important."

"It could be," said Clem. "But what were you doing out alone?"

"I wasn't alone; I had Jack with me."

"Jack's not a Slayer. Slayers aren't 'one girl in all the world' anymore. You're not supposed to be going out without Slayer backup."

"It was only two vamps," said Cassie. "I got one, and Jack got the other one. It was easy."

"It's easy, until it's not easy, and then they kill you," said Clem. "You should have called us before you did anything."

"That seems to be the popular opinion."

"What do you mean?"

"Jack said the same thing."

"Jack sounds like a smart guy. You should listen to him."

"I'll take that under advisement," said Cassie.

"You should write up a report on what happened," said Clem, "and have Jack write one too. Email them to Robin Wood. We're trying to keep a record of everything that's happening: see if we can identify any hot-spots; nip any vampire, or other sort of activity in the bud, before it gets out of control. Sounds like you've already done that, but we still want your reports."

"Okay, Clem. We'll do that." Cassie stifled a yawn. "Oh, sorry, just the thought of report writing makes me want to go to sleep. It's been a busy night."

"It's amazing how many Slayers have that reaction," said Clem. "Well, I won't keep you up any longer. The reports can wait until morning. Goodnight."

"'Night, Clem." Cassie hung up the phone, and saw Jack looking at her.

"They want a report?" he asked.

"'Fraid so. One from each of us, but not until morning. Why don't you go home and get some sleep?"

"You too," said Jack. "How long is Carter going to be gone, this time?"

"This mission was scheduled to take a week, but you know what happens with those schedules." Cassie couldn't remember the last time a mission had actually gone off on schedule. She tried not to worry about Sam when she was gone, but it was hard.

"Don't worry about Carter, she's got Major-Me to watch her back."

"So who watches his back?"

"Teal'c, and Daniel. They always manage to bring each other back."

* * *

Jack read over Cassie's report of the vampire Slaying, and made her rewrite it, before they emailed it off to the Council. She tried to get a look at his, so she could copy it, but he wouldn't let her see it until after she had finished her second version. He just provided her with an outline of what he wanted to see in it, based on the standard mission reports filed by the SG teams.

A week later, Cassie was spending the evening at home with Sam. They liked to spend as much time together as they could when Sam wasn't away on a mission. They saw a report on TV about some sort of riot that had taken place in L.A. The news anchor said that there had been an outbreak of violence between rival street gangs. Some people had been hospitalized, but the primary damage had been to property. A fire had been started in the office tower belonging to the law firm of Wolfram and Hart, and the rioting had kept the fire department from reaching the scene before it was too late to prevent the complete destruction of the building. Several people were reported missing, including Senator Brucker, who was running for re-election and a major supporter of the Vice Presidential candidate, Senator Kinsey, but so far, no bodies had been found.

* * *

Cassie and Sam were finishing lunch when the doorbell rang. Sam got up to answer it. Cassie heard a familiar voice say, "Hey, Blondie! Is Cassie in?"

Cassie went to the kitchen door, and saw who was standing on the doorstep. "Yes she is, and please don't call me that again, Miss Russell." Sam was saying to Faith.

"I'll make you a deal, Major," said Faith. "You don't call me 'Miss Russell' and I won't call you 'Blondie.'"

"Fair enough, Faith. Why don't you and Mr.—" Sam caught herself when she saw the look the man was giving her. "Xander, come in."

"Thank you, Major," said Xander, and he and Faith came into the house.

"Hi guys!" said Cassie. "I thought you were in Africa?"

"We were, but we got called back to help handle an emergency that cropped up," said Xander. Cassie could see that his skin was deeply tanned, and he'd lost a few pounds over the last year. That wasn't the most striking difference from a year ago, though. His eye patch was gone. She caught herself staring at his eye for a moment, noting that it didn't quite track with the other one as he glanced around the room. She managed to pull her eyes away from his prosthetic before she thought that he noticed that she'd been staring.

"What sort of emergency?" asked Sam.

"Nothing to worry about, anymore," said Faith. "We just had to take care of that thing in L.A."

"Ah," said Sam. "We were just finishing lunch. Can we get you anything?"

"We've already eaten, but I wouldn't say no to some coffee," said Xander, and Faith quickly agreed. They passed through the kitchen to get mugs of coffee for Faith and Xander, and for Sam to warm up her own, before going to the living room. Everyone found seats, with Xander and Faith together on the sofa.

"So, what happened in L.A.?" asked Cassie.

"Some friends of ours got stupid, and decide to pull a Samson act," said Faith. "Thanks to the heads-up we got from you, we managed to get some help to them, before they _all_ managed to get themselves killed."

"What those vampires said about Wolfram and Hart, and Blackthorn?" asked Cassie.

"Yeah," said Xander. "That was a real mess. I don't know what they thought they were doing, but we managed to get some Slayers into L.A. to contain things before they got too out of hand." From the expressions on their faces, Cassie figured that some people that they cared about were killed. It was a look that she'd seen on Sam's face, and her mother's, too many times. "So, anyway, we're here to give you an 'attagirl!' for the heads up, and to tell you '_What the hell were you doing out patrolling on your own?'_" Xander finished up.

"I wasn't on my own," said Cassie. "I had Jack with me."

"A seventeen year old kid isn't adequate backup."

Cassie gave him a look. "Oh? What were all those stories I heard about all the times in Sunnydale when Buffy went out, with just you for backup?"

"Girl's got a point, Xan," said Faith.

"That was different!" said Xander. "Sunnydale was the Hellmouth!"

"Which means it's a lot safer for me to be doing it here, than it was for you in Sunnydale."

Xander turned his glare to Sam. "What about you? Why didn't you stop her?"

"I wasn't here," said Sam. "I at least got her to agree not to go out without taking Jack along."

"Where were you?" asked Xander.

"Away," said Sam.

"Deep Space Radar Telemetry requires that you do a lot of travelling?"

"Sometimes," said Sam.

Xander gave Sam a slightly cockeyed stare for a moment. Cassie knew that he and the others weren't happy with her ties to the military—especially a top secret military program—but they seemed to accept her assurances that whatever Sam was involved in had nothing to do with things demonic, or sub-terrestrial (other than the location of their base.) "Okay, I guess we'll have to live with that. The other reason we came here is that we want to meet Jack."

"What?" asked Cassie.

"If he's going to keep helping you out, we want to meet him for ourselves," said Faith.

"Especially if you want us to pull strings for him to get him into university with you," said Xander. "The admissions interviews for Oxford and Cambridge should have been done months ago. Giles is going to have to call in some markers from some old friends as it is. We want to make sure he's worth it."

"He's worth it," said Sam.

"How well do you know him?" asked Faith.

Sam hesitated for a moment. "I've known him for seven years."

"So, ever since he was about ten?" asked Xander.

"Sometimes, he seemed even younger. He's matured a lot over the last year."

Cassie couldn't disagree with that. Jack did tend to behave more like a grownup than the Colonel did.

* * *

Jack had a quick look around his apartment to make sure that everything was in order. He'd actually deliberately messed the place up a bit, so it would look more like a place where a kid might live. It was still neater than you would expect for a place that a seventeen year old made his home, but now it didn't look ready for an inspection. His dirty dishes from dinner were sitting in the sink, instead of being washed and put away. Some back issues of _Sports Illustrated_ and the current _TV Guide_ were sitting out on the coffee table, along with his season 1 _Simpsons_ DVDs, and the controller for his Playstation. The pictures of Charley, and some other mementoes of his past life that might cause awkward questions to be asked, were temporarily put away out of sight.

Cassie had phoned to warn him that Harris and Russell wanted to meet him, and he'd just buzzed them in the front entrance of his apartment building a couple of minutes earlier. They should be knocking on his door any second. He had to remember to be careful about what he said to them. As far as they knew, he'd never met them before.

The knock came on his door, and he opened it. There were three people standing in the hallway. "Hi Cassie."

"Hey, Jack." Cassie waved her hand as Harris and Russell. "These are Faith Russell, and Xander Harris."

"Miss Russell, Mr. Harris, pleased to meet you." Jack extended his hand.

"Just call me Faith," she said as she shook his hand.

"And I'm Xander. When I hear 'Mr. Harris' I look around for my dad."

"Okay, Xander. Please, come in." Jack stepped back from the door.

They all entered the apartment. Xander looked around the place with interest. Faith was looking intently at him. "What?" he asked.

"Damn, but you look like that colonel."

Jack winced. "I hear that a lot." It was getting to be more of a problem. He'd undergone a growth spurt over the last six months, and now he had nearly reached his full height, and his face didn't look nearly as boyish, anymore. He had tried to compensate by letting his hair grow out, but when some of the guys on his hockey team had started calling him MacGyver, he'd cut it back. It was still longer than he'd worn it at any time since starting at the Academy. He still couldn't manage to grow a beard, or moustache, though.

"So, he's like your cousin?" asked Xander.

"First cousin, once removed," said Jack. "They say we both look like Great-Granddad."

"Must be pain in the ass," said Faith.

Jack shrugged. "It's not so bad. We don't see each other much."

Xander was looking around the apartment again. "Nice place. I never could have afforded anything like this, when I was your age."

"Granddad put his money into IBM, and Xerox," said Jack. "Dad picked Microsoft, and Apple. I was left with more than enough to support myself, till I finish school." Actually the Air Force had calculated the other Jack's net worth, including the present value of his pension, and paid Jack off in one lump sum, along with a fake background that explained where the money came from.

"We might be able to help grease the skids for your admission to university, but we can't afford to pay your tuition, like we're doing for Cassie," said Xander.

Jack shrugged. "That's cool. Like I said, I'm not short for cash. I can pay my own way."

"So, how did a kid like you end up living on his own?" asked Faith.

* * *

Jack told them his prepared cover story. How his father had been killed flying over Iraq, about a year earlier. Since he was already seventeen, had no close living relatives, and had the means to support himself well beyond university, he had filed for, and been granted, emancipated minor status. His mother had died while he was still an infant, and he had no memories of her. He had moved all around the world with his father, as he went from posting to posting. His father had taught him how to fly, and handle guns and other light weapons. He'd been around the military for most of his life, and learned a lot about the way they did things.

It took a lot longer than that to tell them. Harris and Russell had lots of questions about the places he'd been, what he'd done there, and other things. Before they were done, Jack was pretty sure that they suspected that his background was fake, and were fishing for the evidence to prove it. He started doing a little probing into Russell's background. A lot of the things he'd heard said about her didn't match with her official records either.

It was after dark when Russell got to her feet. "I think it's time for a patrol." She pulled a stake out from somewhere—Jack couldn't imagine where she'd been managing to hide it—and tossed it to him. "You're with me, Jack."

Cassie looked confused. "What about me?"

"You're stuck with me," said Xander.

"Wouldn't it be better if we all stuck together?" asked Cassie.

"We can cover more ground if we split up," said Faith.

"And this way you get to interrogate us both separately, for a bit, to see if our stories still match up," said Jack.

"That too," agreed Xander.

"But—"

"It's okay, Cass," said Jack. "I wouldn't mind the chance to ask Faith a few questions, away from Xander, too."

* * *

Jack's one indulgence with the money he'd received from the Air Force was his car. He'd always wanted a Corvette when he was a kid, and now he had one. He drove it over the streets of Colorado Springs in a manner that was barely legal, watching Faith out of the corner of his eye to see how she'd react. She lounged in the passenger seat, as if totally unconcerned by his style of driving.

"So, Jack, why are you really doing this?" she asked.

"Doing what?"

"Helping Cassie," said Faith. "You're a cute kid. You've got the cool car. I bet you're popular in school. Shouldn't you be busy trying to lay cheerleaders, or something like that?"

"I'm not interested in the cheerleaders," said Jack.

"Okay…so how about the football jocks?"

What was with Russell, and her implying he was gay? Jack asked himself. "I like girls," he said out loud. "It's just that most of the girls at school are so…immature. I like someone whose interests extend beyond the latest in fashion, and the pop star du jour."

"Someone like Cassie."

"Yeah."

"So, you're doing this to get into her pants? Got anywhere yet?"

"No!"

"You haven't got anywhere yet?"

"This isn't about that! I've known Cassie since she was a kid. She's like a—" Jack almost said 'daughter.' "She's like a kid sister to me, okay? I'm doing this to make sure she's alright."

"That's it? You're just watching Cassie's back?"

"It's important, too," said Jack. "Someone has to do it."

"You sure you're not some sort of adrenaline junkie?"

"I'm sure. Most of this has been boring as hell. Cassie's been going out on patrols for months, and we've only encountered the two vampires. If I wanted excitement, I'd take up something like sky-diving."

"Or driving fast cars?"

Jack grinned at that, as he manoeuvred his Corvette through an S curve at well over the recommended speed. "Yeah, or driving fast cars." He dropped down to a much more respectable speed before he turned into the gates of Evergreen Cemetery. He pulled into a parking spot. "We're here."

"So we are," said Faith. "So where now?"

"You're the Slayer."

"This is your town."

Jack shrugged. "Okay. It doesn't really make much difference, but we might as well go that way." He pointed to a path that led between the graves.

They walked along, talking quietly. "So you aren't in if for thrills, and you aren't trying to get laid, you just want to make the world a better place?" asked Faith.

"Pretty much."

"I'd think that with all your exposure to them, you'd be thinking about joining the military," said Faith. "Be all you can be."

"That's the army." Jack had thought about it. The Air Force had offered to take him back, in a few years, once he looked old enough to be taken seriously as an officer again, but it would be a long time before he could begin to approach the sort of rank that he had earned. "I think I've had enough of the military, for a while. It seems like I spent most of my life on military bases."

"So you want to spend your life helping Slayers?" asked Faith.

"Don't know about my entire life," said Jack, "but there are worse ways I could spend it."

"This can be dangerous. It might be a short life."

"And I might get hit by a drunk driver tomorrow," said Jack. "I could still have a short life while doing something 'safe.' I might as well make the time I have count for something."

Faith stopped and looked at him with a curious expression on her face. "That's an unusual attitude for someone your age."

Jack shrugged. "I've seen more than most kids my age."

"I suppose you have." Faith pointed down another path. "Let's try this way."

They avoided any heavy topics for the next little while. Jack learned that she liked hockey (she was a Boston Bruins fan) and her taste in movies tended toward action and beefcake. She liked music by bands he had never heard of. Even after spending six months pretending to be a teenager, he couldn't understand what kids liked about most of the music they listened to these days.

Faith suddenly stopped, and held up a hand to signal him to stop as well. "Wait here," she whispered. She slowly moved forward, scanning the shadows. She froze, staring into the darkness under some trees. "Come on out," she said.

Jack saw movement in the shadows. It resolved into a man, about six feet tall, dark hair, wearing dark clothes. "Hello, Slayer," he said.

"Hello, vampire," said Faith. Jack was behind her, so he couldn't see the smirk that he heard in her voice.

Jack pulled out his cell phone to call Cassie. The vampire's face shifted, showing its ridged brow, yellow eyes and fangs. It had attacked Faith before he finished hitting the speed dial buttons. He pulled the stake that Faith had given him from his pocket and held it ready, just in case, while he waited for Cassie to answer.

The fight between Faith and the vampire was like nothing he had ever seen before. He had been impressed watching Teal'c spar with Cassie, but that was nothing like what he was seeing here. Faith was lightning fast, and lithe as a snake as she struck at the vampire. The vampire seemed slower, but was still quicker than any man that Jack had ever seen fight, and his larger size put more power into his attacks.

Cassie finally answered her phone. It seemed like it had taken forever, but really it had only rung twice. "Yeah, Jack. What's up?" she asked.

"Uh…Faith found a vampire," said Jack. "We're in Evergreen Cemetery." Jack took his eyes off the fight for an instant to confirm where he was. "Southwest corner, near the Cooper cenotaph."

"That's the one with the tacky angel on top?" asked Cassie.

"Right." Jack stopped talking as he watched Faith and the vampire exchange a quick series of kicks and punches. Both of them were moving too fast for him to really see what they were doing. Jack held his stake in his sweaty palm, wishing there was something he could do. They were both moving too fast for him see any sort of opening he could use to get in and finish the vampire off while it was concentrating on Faith. He wished he had a gun. Bullets might not kill the vampire, but he figured that one or two through its knees would slow it down.

"Jack! What's going on?" asked Cassie. "Should me and Xander come there?"

Jack shook his head. "No. One way or another this is going to be over long before— _Shit!_"

One of the vampire's kicks had gotten past Faith's defence and hit her squarely on the side of her head. Faith went down. She lay, not moving, on the ground. The vampire crouched over her, grabbed her by her jacket, and lifted her neck up toward its fangs.


	18. Part XVIII

**Part XVIII**

Jack dropped the phone, and dashed forward. His best chance was to stake the vampire in the back, while its attention was still focused on Faith. If that didn't work, he figured they were both dead.

The vampire heard him coming. It dropped Faith, and spun toward him. Jack almost managed to dodge the backhanded punch that the vampire threw at him. The glancing blow still staggered him.

The vampire left Faith lying on the ground, and stood up to look at Jack. It snorted derisively. "You expect to beat me, boy, after I've taken down the Slayer?"

"No," said Jack honestly.

"So, why don't you just run along? You might get enough of a head start before I'm done with her, that I won't bother coming after you."

"Never going to happen," said Jack. He shifted his grip on the stake. It felt slippery in his sweating hand. He waited for the vampire to make a move, hoping that if he kept it distracted long enough, maybe Faith would recover. He knew that any attack that he made while the vampire's attention was solely on him would likely be futile.

The vampire attacked him. Its moves were slower now: its blows not coming as hard or as fast as they had seemed against Faith. At first Jack thought that it was his perception that had changed, that the adrenaline rush of the fight was enhancing his senses, making the world seem to slow down around him, but he quickly realized that that wasn't entirely the case. The vampire was _playing_ with him: deliberately holding back, pulling its punches, not going for the quick kill when it had the chance. It almost casually brushed aside his attacks, sometimes even letting Jack land punches, because it knew that they couldn't hurt it.

The arrogance of this vampire really annoyed him. He could see the same smug expression on its face that he had seen on the faces of the Goa'uld: so sure of its own superiority that it didn't see Jack as any kind of threat. Well, there were a lot of Goa'ulds that had come to regret that attitude, for brief moments before they died.

Jack started to hold back a bit himself: pretending to be more tired from this fight than he really was, not hitting as hard, reacting a little slower to the vampire's attacks. Not as obviously as what the vampire was doing, but enough to help stoke its feeling of overconfidence. The vampire's attacks became even softer, and it started leaving bigger gaps in its defence. Just like a Goa'uld, so confident in its own superiority that it left itself open to attacks that _shouldn't_ work.

Jack dropped, and swept his leg toward the vampire's, looking like he was attempting to sweep it off its feet. The vampire hopped over his leg, just as Jack expected it to, and for an instant it was hanging in the air, unable to affect the movement of its body. Jack kicked up, knocking the vampire off balance. It fell backwards toward the ground, its back coming down toward the point of Jack's stake. Newton was in charge now; there was nothing the vampire could do to keep from impaling itself on the stake.

Something knocked Jack's stake aside, and he "Ooffed!" as the vampire landed on top of him. He looked, and saw Faith grinning at him. "Good move, kid, you would have had him."

"_What?_" asked Jack.

"Yeah, you surprised me with that one," said the vampire. It had rolled off Jack, and was sitting on the ground now, grinning at him too.

"What's going on here?" asked Jack.

"Just a little test," said Faith. "Congratulations, you passed."

"That was a test?" asked Jack. "What if I'd staked him!"

"Not really a problem." Faith took Jack's stake, and pulled a small penlight from her pocket. She shone the light on the base of the stake, and held it out for Jack to look at. "See."

Jack could read "Made in Taiwan" embossed on the base of the stake.

"It's plastic," said Faith. "Looks like wood, feels like wood, but if you stake a vamp with it, all you'll do is really piss it off."

Jack wanted to yell at Faith, but he remembered the final exam for entry onto an SG team that he'd personally run half a dozen times, tossing recruits into what looked like a real situation to see how they'd react when they came under real fire. He looked at the vampire he'd been fighting, instead. It wasn't showing its fangs anymore. "You're really a vampire?"

"Jack, meet Angel," said Faith.

"You're Angel?"

"I am," said the vampire. "Um…you better say something to your friend there; she sounds upset." He pointed to where Jack's phone lay on the grass. Jack could hear a tinny voice coming from the tiny speaker.

Jack quickly picked up the phone. "Cassie! You still there?"

"Yes Jack. Are you okay?"

Jack took a quick inventory. "I picked up a couple of bruises, but I'm alright."

"Angel didn't hurt you, then?"

"_You knew?_"

"Xander just told me what was going on. I didn't know until after you dropped your phone."

* * *

"Okay Jack, I'll see you back at the house." Cassie snapped her phone closed, and looked at Xander. "So…do you guys have any surprise tests for me?"

Xander shook his head. "Nope. Not like that one anyway. Being a Slayer is test enough. We're going to be doing evaluations, so you can learn where your weak points are, and what needs work. I'm sure that once we have some sort of training program organized, they'll do things like spring pop quizzes on you."

Cassie turned back toward where her car had been parked. "So, no Cruciamentum on my eighteenth birthday, then."

Xander fell in beside her. "You heard about that, did you? Who told you?"

"Buffy."

"I guess she wanted to make sure that no one took anyone by surprise, the way they did her."

"If you aren't planning anything like that, why tell us?"

Xander thought for a bit. "Checks and balances."

"What?"

"Willow would be shocked. She assumed that I slept through all my history classes, but I was awake for some of them. It's all about checks and balances."

"What's that got to do with this?"

"Two hundred years ago, Washington and Jefferson and the rest of them had just deposed one sort of tyrannical government, and they wanted to set things up in a way that would ensure that they wouldn't get another one, a generation or two down the line. They didn't trust a lot of their fellow citizens, so they created a government that was full of checks on its power. They tried to balance things by making different branches of government responsible for different things, with checks from the other branches on just what each branch could do."

"So, what's that got to do with this?"

"So, now we're trying to put the Watchers back together. In a way, we function as a government for the Slayers. And like a good government, we're putting in checks and balances. We've got a pretty good bunch of people, but none of us are perfect. We've got some holdovers from the old Council, who might long for the good old days when the Slayer was just their tool. We don't know anything about the people who are going to be running things a hundred years from now. One way to make sure that we don't start falling back into the old Council's bad habits is to make sure that all the Slayers know about the bad things that can happen, if the Council does start to forget who it's supposed to be working for."

They reached Cassie's car: a five year old Toyota Tercel. Xander didn't seem nearly as nervous as he had been the first time she'd said that she was driving when he went to the passenger side door and waited for her to get in the other side and unlock it for him. Slayers and cars were a constant source of discussion in the forums, with the Slayers all insisting that they were excellent drivers, and everyone else saying that riding with a Slayer driving was a good way to give yourself a heart attack.

Cassie drove them back toward Sam's house. "So, where'd you learn how to drive?" he asked her.

"Colonel O'Neill, and Sam taught me," said Cassie. "Why?"

"Think you could talk them into giving lessons to some of the other Slayers?"

"They really don't have that much free time."

Xander sighed. "Too bad. You don't seem to have a lot of the bad habits that the other girls have picked up."

"Maybe that's because the treated me the way they would a cadet in flight school. They wouldn't let me get away with doing the slightest thing wrong."

"So, there's no way we could get them to give the other Slayers some lessons?" asked Xander. "Your driving is much easier on my nerves than any of the other girls. I make it a point to almost never let Faith drive."

"Oh, they taught me a couple of things, that might make you nervous," said Cassie, as she looked around, and checked her mirrors to confirm that there was no traffic around her. "And so has Jack."

"Such as?" asked Xander.

"Such as _this_." Cassie suddenly downshifted into second gear, and threw her steering wheel hard to the left, putting her car into skid. It rotated through 180 degrees, and came to a stop in the opposite lane, and facing the opposite direction, in a perfectly executed bootleg turn.

"Great Googly Moogly!" said Xander.

Cassie grinned at him. "Fun, wasn't it?" She put her car into reverse, accelerated backwards, and threw the wheel over again, putting her car through a moonshiner's turn to get heading back toward her home.

"Okay, I take it back!" said Xander. "You _do_ make me as nervous as all the other Slayers' driving!"

* * *

When they got back to her house Cassie saw Faith leaning against Jack's Corvette, while Jack was looking over another car, along with Sam, and a tall, dark haired man. The car was a black convertible that looked to be pretty old, but it was in good condition.

She felt a familiar chill as she got out of her car, and wanted to reach for her stake, but she knew that this man must be Angel, the Vampire with a Soul, and all that. She probably wouldn't make many friends by dusting him.

"Yeah, it's a 67," Angel was saying. "Made back when Detroit still knew how to put together a solid automobile, and the 440 hemi engine really makes it move."

"But you have to stop for gas every ten miles," said Xander. There was something in the tone of his voice, and the way that Angel looked at him, that made Cassie think that maybe there was one person who wouldn't be too upset if she staked Angel.

Angel's gaze shifted away from Xander, and onto her. He smiled at her, but there was a sadness behind it: a deep seated pain that made her forget for a moment that he was a vampire, and made her want to give him a hug. She scolded herself for being such a sap that she was taken in by a pretty face. He did have a very pretty face though…

Cassie shook her head, and reached out her hand to take the one that Angel had offered to her. "I'm sorry, I got distracted. What did you say?"

"I said, that I'm happy to meet you, Cassandra," Angel repeated.

"Oh, right. I'm happy to meet you too, Angel."

"Now that everyone's happy, how did Jack do?" asked Xander.

"I gotta give him an A," said Faith.

"That good?" asked Jack.

"Yeah, you did that good," said Faith. "First, and most important, you didn't run off and leave me when Angel gave you the chance. That earned you a passing grade, right there. But even before that, you were doing the smart thing. You stayed out of my way, when I was fighting him, and you called Cassie to give her a heads up, so she and Xander would know what was going on, if things went badly, so up to that point you had a strong B."

"So, how'd he get the A?" asked Xander.

"By taking out Angel."

"He did?" asked Cassie.

"Yeah, he did."

"Only because he let me," said Jack.

"I didn't 'let' you do anything."

"Oh, for crying out loud! You could have killed me in two seconds, but you didn't. It was only because you weren't trying to kill me that gave me any chance at all."

"Still, you used that to make yourself an opening, and you used it," said Angel.

"So, what now?" asked Cassie.

"Now…we want to bring all the North American Slayers and Watchers into Akron for some training over the summer. You're both invited." Xander looked at Sam. "If the Major approves."

* * *

Faith lay snuggled up against Xander in their bed, resting her head on his shoulder, and idly twirling his chest hairs with her fingers. As little as six months ago she'd have scoffed at anyone telling her that she'd enjoy just snuggling with a man as much as she enjoyed it with Xander. A year ago she'd have laughed out loud at anyone who suggested that she'd be sharing a bed with him. Now…just lying here with Xander made her feel warm, and safe, and comfortable.

Xander's fingers caressed her hair. "Was Jack really that good?" he asked her.

"Yes, he was that good," said Faith. "He reminded me… You remember that group of Riley's people we ran into in Namibia?"

"Yeah?"

"He reminded me of the way some of those guys could fight."

"They were Special Ops, with years of training and experience, decades even."

"Yeah," said Faith.

"And Jack was as good as they were?"

"Better," said Faith.

"How did a seventeen year old kid learn to fight like someone with years of military training?" asked Xander. "I don't care how much his dad and his dad's army buddies taught him. That isn't possible."

"I know."

"I talked with Willow again. She's even more convinced that his bio was faked."

"Still doesn't explain how he got so good, so young."

"She said that Cassie's bio looks a little fishy, too. It's almost like she didn't exist before a few years ago."

Faith lifted her head off Xander's shoulder, and looked up at him. "Same thing would happen if you tried looking too closely at my past."

"I know," said Xander. "Makes you wonder what they're hiding. Why would the Air Force be creating fake backgrounds for a couple of kids like that? Cassie's would have to have been done when she was about twelve. It doesn't make any sense."

"The kid is obviously related to Colonel O'Neill, so it can't be a total fabrication."

"Maybe he's O'Neill's bastard son, or something, and they wanted to cover up that he exists, for some reason."

"But what about Cassie?" asked Faith. "She seems like a pretty normal kid, right? Pretty much like any of the other Slayers. I mean, it's been tough, the last few months after losing her step-mom, but she seems to be adjusting okay."

"Yeah, she seems like a good kid. What did you think of Jack? Other than his unusual combat skills."

"I don't know." Faith thought for a moment. "He seems pretty mature for his age. Smart, but tries not to show it. That's how he beat Angel. He recognized that he was being played with, set up a trap, and suckered him into it. Angel fell for it, hook, line and sinker."

"We know that they're doing something super-secret inside that mountain of theirs," said Xander. "They're both orphans, with no close relatives still alive. None of the people Willow's checked with in the places Jack's supposed to have been remember him, or his supposed father ever existing. Maybe their parents were some sort of black-ops types, that died doing things that the government doesn't want to admit anyone was doing, so they set the kids up with new identities, as part of the cover up."

"You think the same thing happened with Dr. Fraiser?"

"Well…they didn't go give Cassie a new identity, but Willow tried looking into the crash, just to find out what happened. She couldn't find anything."

"No reason for the crash?" asked Faith.

"No crash," said Xander. "Not a real one, anyway. There are documents saying the crash happened, and that Dr. Fraiser was the only fatality, but no real follow up investigation. And there don't seem to be any helicopters missing from the Air Force inventory."

"'"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.'"

Xander tilted his head to look at her. "I never would have taken you for an Alice in Wonderland fan."

"I fell down the rabbit hole years ago. Wonderland is normal compared to my life." Faith walked her fingers down from his chest, and under the sheets. "So, how's your little rabbit doing?"

"Mmmm…feels like he's late for a very important date."

Faith slid herself up onto him. "Oh…I've always found him very timely." Her mouth came to his for a kiss, and then neither of them spoke again for a very long time.


	19. Part XIX

**Part XIX**

Buffy and Dawn were waiting for them at the arrivals gate of the Cleveland airport. Xander ran to gather them both into his arms for a huge hug, which they returned with enough strength to threaten cracking some ribs. "God, it's been way too long!"

"It has," said Buffy, as she released him. She turned her attention to Faith. She got a hug too, but not nearly as strong as the one she'd given Xander. "How have you been?"

"I've been good, B. How about you guys?"

"We've been alright. Getting better, now that we're getting the gang back together. Giles is already here, and Willow and Kennedy are due in tomorrow."

"We're doing the whole big reunion party thing on the weekend," said Dawn.

"So, how did you like Rome?" asked Faith. "Did you get yourself some nice Italian stud?" Xander saw Dawn blush. "Oh, you did! Come on, you can tell me all about him while we go get our bags!" They went off toward the baggage carousel together, leaving Buffy with Xander.

"So, what happened in L.A.?" asked Buffy. "Your emails were notably lacking with the details. How bad was it, really?"

"It was bad." Xander looked around to make sure that there was no one close enough to overhear him. "Wesley was dead before we got there," he said quietly. "Gunn was wounded badly; he'd lost a lot of blood before we arrived. We got him to a hospital; he's still in critical condition."

"What about our girls?" asked Buffy.

"No serious injuries. Rona managed to break her arm again."

"And Angel's okay?"

"Nothing he couldn't heal from. He didn't want to fly, so he's driving here…should arrive in a couple of days, if he doesn't chicken out."

"Why would he chicken out?"

"He wasn't really forthcoming, but I'm pretty sure that the whole mess was his fault."

"Xander—"

"No. This isn't me blaming Angel because I don't like Angel. And I don't think it's Angel taking the blame because he likes to brood and take the blame for everything, even more than you do. I didn't get the whole story from him, but the bits I did get… He really managed to screw things up, and not just with Wolfram and Hart, and Black Thorn. Spike…"

"What's Spike got to do with this?" asked Buffy. "He's been dead for nearly a year. You can't go blaming him for this."

"That's the thing. Apparently he hasn't been dead for nearly a year."

"What?"

"He turned up in L.A. a couple of weeks after Sunnydale was destroyed," said Xander. "He's been hanging out with Angel ever since."

"He's alive?"

"No." Xander shook his head. "I'm sorry Buff, but he didn't make it. He was killed protecting Gunn, after he went down."

Xander watched the emotions play across Buffy's face. Grief, anger, puzzlement… "How could he not have told us?"

"I don't know, but Andrew knew about it."

"He did! I'm gonna strangle that little…"

Faith and Dawn were back. Dawn was carrying Xander's suitcase, and Faith had her own, plus their weapons bag. "You've told her?" asked Faith.

"I've hit most of the main points," said Xander.

"Did you get to the Smurfette?" asked Faith.

"What are you talking about?" asked Dawn.

* * *

Buffy climbed up onto the elevated platform that had been set up at one end of their gymnasium. There was something beside her, more than twice as tall as she was, that was covered by a deep blue sheet. She tapped the cordless microphone she was holding a couple of times. "Is this thing working?"

"Yes!" called out half a dozen of the people in the room.

"Alright, well, it's been a year now since the destruction of Sunnydale, and it's been a year since most of you have had to listen to me make a speech."

"Can we make it two years?" called someone, whom Buffy couldn't identify for sure, but she thought that it sounded like Dawn.

"I promise, that this one's going to be short. I don't really have a whole lot to say." Buffy looked out across the gym. Nearly everyone who had survived Sunnydale was here, as well as several of the new Slayers, and Watchers that they'd recruited. "It's good to see that everyone could make it. It's been a big year for us, finding all the new Slayers, and rebuilding the Watchers. I wanted to thank all of you for your hard work. We've made a good start, but there's still a lot of work to do, but today, it's time to take a look back to commemorate our losses.

"It was a year ago today that Willow cast her spell to create all the Slayers, and a year ago today we went into battle against the First. We won, but it wasn't without a cost.

"The National Park Service is going to be creating a Sunnydale National Monument, around the crater. They're still arguing about what they think happened there, but we do have some friends in high places, who know the truth. They know what we did, and they know what it cost, and we've arranged for there to be a memorial…not just to the people who died that day, but to all of the Slayers, and those who have fought at our sides."

Buffy reached out and grabbed the rope that was dangling beside her. She tugged it, pulling away the sheet that had been covering the twelve foot tall monolith on the platform with her.

"They saved the world, a lot," she said, repeating the words carved at the top of the obelisk. "There are countless names that should be up here: Kendra, Jenny, Tara, Nikki, and thousands of Slayers back through history whose names have been forgotten, but we had to pick a place to start, and we picked the battle against the First, one year ago, and placed the names of those who fell upon this stone: Amanda, Anya, Cathy, Delores, Heidi, Neela, Oksana, Quanshae, Silvia, Valerie, and William.

"Some friends of ours have fallen in the last year, and their names are here too: Cordelia, Fred, Wesley…there was some debate over whether or not to put Spike up a second time, but Xander said that if we were going to do that, he wanted my name up there twice already too." A slight ripple of nervous laughter went through her audience.

"There's still a lot of blank space on this stone, and, eventually—not too quickly, I hope—all our names will be added to it. We expect that it will take a thousand years to fill it. What happens then…well that will be up to our descendants. I'm still getting used to the idea of thinking more than a few weeks ahead. I think I can leave planning for the fourth millennium up to someone else.

"For the next year or so, this monument is going to be staying here, in our Akron campus. But we're going to be moving it to Sunnydale, once they've got the National Monument there ready to open to the public. I hope that we won't have added any new names to it, before then."

Buffy raised the glass of champagne that was in her hand. "Right now, I'm here to propose a toast: To our departed friends!"

"To our departed friends!" came back the response from nearly a hundred voices.

Buffy took a sip from her glass. "Alright, well, enough of the morbid stuff. Anya would kick our asses if we spent too much time moping about her. This is supposed to be a party! So let's party!"

* * *

Buffy looked around the room at her friends. Everyone here was a survivor of Sunnydale. Dawn, Giles, Willow and Xander had been with her from the beginning. Faith and Kennedy had been picked up along the way. They had all had a bit too much to drink tonight, as they remembered the ones who hadn't survived.

"So, what next?" asked Xander.

"I've promised to show Dawn the world, so we're heading out next week," said Buffy. "Asia needs a lot of work. Caridad and Chao Ahn have made a good start there, but there's still a lot to be done."

"Mao's 'Cultural Revolution' managed to kill nearly all of the Watchers in China," said Giles. "The oldest Watcher tradition in the history of the world was brushed away in a fit of ideology. It is somewhat ironic that as a result, the First only managed to identify a few of the Potentials living there. Half of the new Slayers are Chinese, but we have only managed to contact a few of the new Slayers living in that region. Operating in China is still difficult."

"So they're going to get a couple of American tourists," said Dawn. "Determined to see the 'Real China.' Go all the places that regular tourists don't see."

"And the Chinese government is just going to allow this?" asked Xander.

"Riley's arranged for a _National Geographic_ photographer to come along with us," said Buffy. "We'll do a story: 'Backpacking Around China' or something like that. Nothing that the Chinese can object to."

"You're going to be appearing in _National Geographic_?" asked Xander.

"We'll try to keep the pictures to be of the scenery," said Dawn.

* * *

The taxi dropped them at the iron gates to WCI's Akron campus. Jack paid the driver, after they had gotten their bags out of the trunk, and Cassie had pressed the button on the intercom to announce their arrival. The gates swung open as the driver got back into the cab, and drove away.

Jack picked up two of the bags—only one of which was his—while Cassie grabbed the third, lightest one. "You're supposed to be the super-strong one here," he grumbled as they set out through the long, early evening shadows up the driveway toward the WCI building.

"Yes, but I'm undercover," said Cassie. "You have to pretend to be a gentleman."

"I _am_ a gentleman!" said Jack. "Congress said so!"

"You're not an officer anymore Jack."

"I've got an honourable discharge. It's so classified that almost no one outside the President and the Joint Chiefs can see it, but it still leaves me a gentleman."

"If you say so."

"You're going to argue with Congress, the President, and the Joint Chiefs?"

"I'm still Canadian, Jack. Until Parliament rules on it, I'm taking it under advisement."

They had reached the entrance to the main WCI building, and Cassie conceded to hold the door open for Jack, since she was the one who had a hand free. She followed him through the door into the lobby.

"Wow! Nice place!" said Jack.

Cassie looked around. "Yeah, it cleaned up real nice!" The scaffolding and plaster dust from a year ago was gone. In its place was a lot of golden yellow marble. The floor and the walls were covered with it. In the centre of the lobby was a reception desk that seemed to have been carved from a solid block of it. Behind the desk was a smiling girl.

"Hi! You must be Cassie and Jack! I'm Mandy! Sorry you had to take a taxi, but everyone got caught up in a minor emergency."

"What sort of emergency?" asked Jack.

"Oh, nothing to worry about," said Mandy. "Just some L.A. transplants trying to set up shop near the new Hellmouth. We thought that we would show them the error of their ways with a show of excessive force. We couldn't spare anyone to come pick you up. Just a sec." She picked up the phone on the desk, and dialled an extension number. "Andrew, get down here. They're here." She smiled at them. "Andrew will be here in a couple of minutes to show you to your rooms. In the meantime…" She opened a drawer and pulled out a couple of plastic cards. "…these are your ID cards. Don't lose them. You need them to open the doors to your rooms, and any of the other restricted areas that you're allowed in."

"Where aren't we allowed?" asked Jack.

"The restricted section of the library, the armoury, private quarters, stuff like that," said Mandy. She pulled a box out of the drawer that had an assortment of chains, and clips and things. "Here, you can take one of these to hold your card. Don't lose it."

Jack and Cassie both picked out badge reels that they could clip to their belts. They had both just finished attaching their cards, when they heard the chime of an elevator arriving, and the doors behind the reception desk slid open.

Mandy glanced back to see who had arrived. A young man, about twenty years old, with blond hair, was stepping out of the elevator. "Hi Andrew! Cassie and Jack are here." She turned back. "This is Andrew Wells. He's in charge of the housing arrangements."

"Hi Andrew!" said Cassie.

Andrew held up his hand in a Vulcan salute. "Greetings Slayer! Live long and prosper!"

"Uh, right," said Cassie.

Jack looked at Mandy, and saw her shrug. "Just go with it; you get used to him after a while," she stage whispered to him.

Jack saw Andrew frown at her.

"Andrew's in charge of housing," said Mandy, in a normal voice. "He'll show you to your rooms, and then give you the nickel tour of the place."

* * *

The residential section took up one wing of the building. Two floors were set aside for the Slayers, divided up into four bedroom suites. The bedrooms were small, but comfortable. They each had a window that looked out over the WCI grounds, and a single bed, and a desk. Each suite had a shared common room, kitchenette, and bathroom. The suite that Cassie was placed in only had one other girl staying in it, at the moment. They didn't get to meet her, since she was out with one of the teams doing the sweep around the Hellmouth.

Jack was put on a different floor. This one had a greater variety of accommodations on it, much of it taken up by the permanent residents. Principal Wood had a private apartment on this floor, and another suite belonged to Faith and Xander. There were other two bedroom suites that were occupied by some of the more senior Slayers, or held available to accommodate visitors from around the world. Jack also learned that all the single guys were housed on this floor. He found that he would be sharing a suite with Andrew and another guy, similar the ones set up for the Slayers on the lower floors.

Jack's new roommate, Tim Hall, was very happy to meet him. Even more so when he learned that Jack had only seen the _Star Wars_ movies once, the only _Star Trek_ he'd seen much of was the original series, and that he'd rather watch sports on TV than anything else (with the exception of _The Simpsons._) "Thank God!" he said. "I was afraid I'd be stuck with no one but Andrew to talk with all summer!"

Jack gave Tim an uncertain smile. He wasn't sure what to make of him, or of the attitude that he had seen exhibited toward Andrew. Okay, Andrew came across as a complete geek—actually 'geek' was much too mild a term—but the open mocking of him that Jack had seen so far couldn't be good for morale. The little exposure that he'd had to Andrew so far reminded Jack of the worst aspects of Rodney McKay and Jay Felger rolled together into one person. But McKay and Felger did have their moments of brilliance which made up for the more irritating aspects of their personalities. Jack could only hope that there was something similarly worthwhile buried deep inside Andrew. Jack was determined to give him a fair shake.

Andrew took them for a quick tour of the rest of the facility after Jack and Cassie had dumped their bags in their rooms. He showed them the cafeteria, where meals were served four times a day. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were provided by an outside catering company, with a do-it-yourself buffet at midnight. Since the catering company wasn't in on the whole "vampires and demons are real" part of the story, Andrew told them that discussion of such things in the cafeteria was frowned upon—that and discussions of demon slime weren't the best sort of mealtime conversation. There was a large laundry room where everyone could take care of their own clothes washing, and Andrew assured them that there were lots of experts available on the topic of how to best remove various sorts of demon ichor from delicate fabrics.

* * *

Jack met with Robin Wood in his office early the next morning. "Early" being a relative term: their meeting was at ten o'clock. One thing that Jack had learned was that there was almost nothing scheduled for non-Slayers before noon. This was because it wasn't uncommon for people to be awake all night. Slayers might be able to get by on less than four hours of sleep, but everyone else needed more.

It was quickly apparent to Jack why everyone called him "Principal Wood." It was more than the simple fact that the Akron campus was being set up as the primary Slayer training facility. Wood carried an air of authority about him that in a strange way reminded him of General Hammond. Maybe it was the bald head. He couldn't think of anything else that the pair had in common. Wood was taller, slimmer, and half of General Hammond's age, but he carried himself with the same aura of calm authority.

Jack sat in a chair on the opposite side of the desk from Wood, trying not to feel like an errant boy summoned to the Principal's office. He had to remind himself that he was at least fifteen years older than the man on the other side of the desk.

"I'd like to welcome you here to Akron, Mr. O'Neill."

"I'm glad to be here, Mr. Wood," said Jack.

Wood looked over the papers on his desk. "Faith has given you a very positive recommendation, but Faith has some blind spots. There is one thing that I want to make very clear to you."

"What's that, Sir?" asked Jack.

"You are a teenage boy, and we have a large number of teenage girls living in this establishment."

"Ya know, I think that occurred to Faith."

Wood's lips quirked into a smile. "Yes, it would. Let's say that we have different priorities. There is one thing that I want to make very clear: while the age of consent in Ohio might be sixteen, as far as we're concerned it's eighteen."

Jack nodded. "Yes, Sir. I understand, and I assure you, I'm not—"

"Mr. O'Neill, that is all that we are going to say on that topic," said Wood. "Now, about your class schedule, we thought that we'd start with Basic Demonology, followed by Introduction to Magic…"


	20. Part XX

**Part XX**

Cassie started her mornings at WCI with a run. One lap around the grounds was about a mile. She wasn't alone: some of the other Slayers liked to start their days that way too, but she was more likely to see some of the Watchers out running. Slayers didn't really need to exercise to stay in shape, but Watchers did. When most of the Slayers went for a run, it was to burn off some excess energy; for Cassie it was almost a form of meditation. Running gave her a chance to think about what was going on in her life. To remember her mother, and her friends in Colorado. To think about what she was going to do next, or to just submerge herself in the run, and not think about anything.

She was on her second lap when she caught up with Jack and Andrew. Jack had made whipping Andrew into shape one of his personal missions. She slowed down to run with them for a bit. "Good morning, guys!"

Jack was looking relaxed, running at a slower pace than she knew he preferred, out of deference to Andrew. "'Morning, Cassie. Lovely day, isn't it?"

It was actually starting to heat up into what the weatherman was predicting to a scorcher of a day. Andrew was already struggling: sweating, and gasping for breath. "Why do I have to do this?" he whined. "I'm never going to be able to outrun a Slayer, or a vampire. Why should I even bother trying?"

"You don't have to outrun a vampire," said Cassie. "You just have to be able to outrun the _other_ people who are trying to outrun a vampire."

"And you're always going to be slower than the Slayers," added Jack, "but that's no excuse to slow them down any more than you have to. Come on, pick it up! Finish this lap, and then we'll see how you do on the obstacle course."

"I'll see you guys later," said Cassie, and she accelerated into a sprint, leaving Jack and the gasping Andrew in her dust.

About half of the WCI campus was wooded, and hidden away among the trees, far from the prying eyes of outsiders, was their obstacle course. Even the Slayers who didn't like to run liked to come out here for exercise, or just to play. It was like a giant jungle-gym, laid out for people with super strength and speed, full of climbing walls, monkey bars, rope bridges, balance beams, and other things to challenge a Slayer's abilities. They'd race each other through it, trying to find more inventive ways to navigate the obstacles.

Some of the obstacles required crawling through dirt and sand. After Cassie had run through it a couple of times, her sweating skin, and her running clothes were covered with grime, so her next stop in her morning routine was the showers by the pool. A quick turn under a shower while still wearing her running outfit washed the worst of the dirt away from her and her clothes; then a quick change into her bathing suit, for a dip in the pool. She dove in, and swam two lengths under water, before surfacing to take a breath of air. She swam a couple more lengths more leisurely on the surface to finish cooling down, letting her heartbeat slow, and her breathing return to normal. After her swim, she returned to the showers to rinse away the salty water, and wash her hair. She left the locker room ready for the day's classes in magic, demonology, or ancient languages: whatever was on the schedule for today.

* * *

Sparring with other Slayers was nothing like sparring with Jack, or Sam. Cassie had always had to be careful when working out with them, adapting herself to work against people with merely human reflexes. She could let herself go when working with other Slayers, hardly holding back at all. She still had to hold herself back a bit, since even other Slayers were mortal, but she was still freer to let her full abilities show through.

She was still surprised by how much of an advantage the training she'd gotten from Sam and Jack gave her over the other Slayers. All Slayers had a gift for fighting, and the sparring helped to train it, but the formal lessons helped even more. Learning the proper forms, and techniques made them even more effective in combat. Cassie found that she was among the best in her classes, on a par with Vi and Rona, and the other Sunnydale survivors, though Faith could still whip her ass most of the time, when she was in town.

The one discipline in which she rose head and shoulders above the others was the quarterstaff. Teal'c's training had made her a master at fighting with it. According to Teal'c, her technique was now on a par with Master Bra'tac's, and she excelled him in both strength and speed, though he had also warned her that sometimes experience counted even more than strength and skill. If she ever had the opportunity to actually test herself against Bra'tac, the wily old man might surprise her. He had forgotten more tricks than most other Jaffa had ever learned.

* * *

Cassie sat in the dark, and looked at the Powerpoint slide projected on the screen at the front of the room. It showed a picture of a spider-like creature beside person, to give a sense of scale. The spider's body was about two feet across. Its clawed legs had a span of over six feet.

"This is a Grimslaw demon," said Andrew. "They are not native to this dimension. If you encounter one of these, it usually means that someone has summoned it." He clicked the button on his remote, and the picture changed, showing the demon attacking the person. A jaw full of teeth extended from the centre of the demon's body toward the human's chest. Andrew waved the beam from a laser pointer over it. "It has an extendable jaw, just like an Alien's, and its favourite food is human hearts. It just plunges that jaw into your chest, and rips your heart out, if you let it."

Andrew clicked to the next slide. "The other main weapon in its arsenal is its webbing. It can shoot strands of sticky, black, web several yards, just like Spiderman, but it doesn't have anything like his ability to make things with it. It mostly uses its webbing to tangle up its prey."

Andrew's demon lectures were always like this: full of references to SF movies, and comic books. It seemed that there wasn't a demon in existence that Andrew couldn't find some sort of parallel to in fantasy fiction, though for some his descriptions he told how the real creatures differed from their fictional counterparts. He's spent over an hour in one lecture explaining how real vampires were nothing like the creatures described by Anne Rice, Laurell K. Hamilton, or even Bram Stoker, even though Stoker's _Dracula_ was based on a real vampire.

"Luckily, the Grimslaw is easily killed," Andrew continued. "There is no need for any special weaponry." He clicked ahead to the next slide, showing a long list of weapons beside the demon. "Knives, swords, axes and stakes all work well, though you will probably want to use something that lets you kill it without coming within reach of its claws. They can give you a very nasty gash if you let it get that close to you." He clicked to the next slide. "This slide shows where the Grimslaw demon is vulnerable. The areas highlighted in red are the preferred targets, where it is most vulnerable. Its back is covered in a hard carapace, that can deflect most weapons, so it is easier to stab through its softer underbelly. Of course, going for the belly exposes you to attack from its mouth and claws. If you have a choice, and a good, strong, sharp, weapon, it is preferable to stab it in the back. If all you've got is a stake, you will have to go for the belly."

Andrew clicked on to the next slide. "This is a Zirkilack demon. It has extendable claws, rather like Wolverine's, but its are bone, not adamantium…"

* * *

Cassie's roommate was named Donna, and she was from Drumheller, Alberta. Someone had thought that it was a good idea to put the two 'Canadians' together. Cassie had managed to bluff her way through using a mixture of the truth (She had been living in Colorado since she was twelve) combined with her faked Torontonian background. The only bit of Toronto that Donna had seen was its airport, where she had switched planes when she had flown down here.

On the morning of July 1st, Donna had declared that they needed to celebrate Canada Day with a road trip.

"Where to?" asked Cassie. "Windsor, or Niagara?" Windsor was closer, but Cassie figured that Niagara Falls was a nicer destination. Both were within range for a day trip by car, going in opposite directions around Lake Erie.

"I was thinking more along the lines of Columbus," said Donna.

"Columbus?" asked Cassie. "As in Columbus, Ohio?"

"Any other Columbuses around here?"

"Why go to Columbus for Canada Day?"

"Because there are Tims in Columbus!"

"Tim who?" asked Cassie.

Donna looked at her in disbelief. "Tim Horton's!"

"Who?" asked Cassie, though she had some dim recollection of having heard the name before.

"And you call yourself a Canadian!" said Donna. "Tim Horton's! The world's finest coffee and doughnuts!"

"Oh!" said Cassie. Now she remembered. She and her mother had eaten at a Tim Horton's a few times, during some of her Toronto visits. She remembered them being okay, especially when compared to other fast food type places, but really not deserving of the sort of adulation that Donna seemed to be showing.

"Of course, it's an American franchise in Columbus, so they might not be holding up the proper standard," said Donna. "But I figure we'll give them a shot. If it doesn't work out, we'll just have to get Jack to fly us across the lake."

Jack had joined a local flying club, and he had become quite popular with the Slayers. He rarely went flying alone, there was always someone who wanted to go with him, and he was always happy to give some unofficial flying lessons. Some of the Slayers had even signed up for lessons with the club's official instructors.

"Have you signed out a car for us?" asked Cassie. The Council kept a pool of vehicles available for the Slayers' use.

"They're all crap," said Donna. Cassie had to agree with her. The Council's cars tended to 'practical' end of the spectrum. "Why don't you ask Jack if you can borrow his 'vette?" Jack had had his Corvette shipped to Akron, and everyone knew that Cassie was the only Slayer he'd let drive it.

* * *

They made it to Columbus in an hour and a half, blowing down Interstate 71 at nearly 90 miles an hour. Between the radar detector in Jack's car, and Cassie's Slayer senses, she'd spotted any cops on the road, and gotten slowed down to a legal speed, before they'd spotted her.

The Canadian flag that Donna had attached to the car was looking a little ragged when they pulled into the parking lot of a Columbus Tim Horton's for lunch. Cassie had to wonder what people thought of the flag, on a car that still had its Colorado license plates.

Cassie enjoyed her lunch, though she really didn't think that it was all that special. Donna pronounced that her meal was 'acceptable' though not really up to the standard she expected. "Next time, I _will_ get Jack to fly us across the lake," she announced as they started the drive back to Akron.

* * *

One day, in the middle of August, Andrew came into the common room with a small box clutched in his hands, and a look of ecstasy on his face. Cassie looked across the room at Jack, and raised an enquiring eyebrow at him. Jack just shrugged in response.

"What have you got there, Andrew?" asked Donna.

Andrew was making a beeline for the rack of AV equipment. "A new DVD release. Just came out."

"What is it?"

"A really cool TV show, from a couple of years ago. Only a few episodes were ever shown before the idiot network cancelled it, but they've released the whole season on DVD." Andrew opened his box, and popped a disk out of its holder. He slid it into the DVD player, picked up the remote for the fifty inch plasma screen, and turned it on. The FBI warning showed up on the screen.

"They released _Firefly_ ages ago," said Donna.

"No, this is something else. Even better!" said Andrew, as he punched buttons on the DVD remote, trying to rush it past more warning screens.

"Good," said Vi. "The captain in that series always gives me the creeps. He reminds me too much of Caleb."

"This is going to be great!" said Andrew, as the _Wormhole X-Treme_ logo splashed across the screen.

Cassie heard a groan, and a thumping noise. She looked around, and saw Jack, banging his head against the table in front of him.

* * *

They hit the condemned office building with two squads at dawn. One squad had gone down into the sewers to cut off the vampires' underground escape routes. Vi had won the coin toss, so her squad went in at ground level, hoping to catch the vamps that nested here unaware, just after they had settled down to sleep the day away.

A crossbow bolt from Jack's crossbow had taken out the sentry that the vamps had positioned in a deeply shadowed alcove outside the building, before it could raise any alarm. Then the Slayers moved in. Vi and Maureen took one door, while Cassie and Donna took another. Jack and Tim hung back with their crossbows, to pick off any vamps that tried to use the morning shadows to escape.

The southern and eastern sides of the building were bathed in sunlight, so they came in from the north and west. Cassie tried her door and found that its lock had been broken long ago. That was good, the less noise they made going in, the better. They didn't want the vamps to learn that they were there, any sooner than necessary. "We're ready," she whispered into the microphone of her headset.

"Go!" came Vi's answer back.

The door hinges squeaked as Cassie pushed it open. Donna went through first, with her crossbow ready. She moved quickly away from the door, making room for Cassie to follow her.

They were at the end of a long hallway, lined with doors. Cassie went the to first one, and pushed it open, quickly scanning the empty office, before announcing it was clear. Donna went to the next office, while Cassie kept watch on the hallway. They moved swiftly, taking turns checking rooms. They only encountered a couple of locked doors, that they broke open as quietly as possible. Vampires and homeless people had already been through this place, searching for anything that was worth stealing.

The building's hallways were laid out in an 'H' pattern, and Vi and Maureen had been checking out the other leg. They met in the cross corridor, at the centre of the building. "Find anything?" Vi asked.

"Nothing," said Donna. "This floor is clear."

"Anyone feel anything?"

"Down," said Cassie, and she saw Maureen and Donna nodding.

"So, we're going down," said Vi.

* * *

Jack hated waiting outside. He wanted to be in the thick of it, leading his team against the enemy, but it wasn't his team. Now he understood how General Hammond must feel, staying behind in Stargate Command, watching teams go out through the gate.

He'd done what he could. He had helped to refine the Slayers' small squad tactics, teaching them how to work together as a team. There really hadn't been all that much to teach them, though. They had already had a pretty good grounding in the basics. There were gaps in their knowledge though: it was like whoever had set up their training had learned how to do it from a book. Jack had been able add some practical refinements, that only came from experience in the field, and to help adapt their tactics to the weapons that Slayers used.

Jack knew that his knowledge of things military was a continuing source of speculation among the upper echelons of the Council, but so far they had seemed to accept his explanations for where it came from, without asking too many questions about it. They seemed to be used to the idea of kids having abilities beyond what most people would expect. At first they had listened to his suggestions for how squads of Slayers could work together with a healthy level of caution, but they had listened, and tried out his ideas in training exercises, and when they worked there they had adopted them into their standard procedures.

Now they sought out his advice for how to handle any new situations that cropped up. It was very gratifying to know that they trusted both him and his judgement that way, but it was still frustrating that when it came to the actual fighting, he was strictly second string: left waiting on the sidelines until the main action was over. When he heard Vi give the order to hit the vamps in the basement, he wanted to be in there leading the charge, not left outside watching for any vamps that might try to escape.

* * *

Cassie and Donna moved silently down the west stairwell into the basement. They paused at the fire door at the bottom, to wait for Vi's signal from the other stairwell to continue. When it came, Donna eased the door open as quietly as she could. That was one of the things that Jack had taught them. Before he'd come along, they would have smashed through the door, and come in yelling. Jack had pointed out that it might not seem very sporting, but it was usually best to kill as many of their adversaries as possible, before they even knew you were there. Come in quietly; take out any sentries before they could detect you; if possible, kill them in their beds, while they were still sleeping. Never give the opposition a break.

The basement was dark, but there was enough light for the Slayers to see. They moved quickly from room to room, searching for the vampires that they could feel were there.

Cassie could feel that they were getting closer. She opened another door, and was assaulted by the sewer smell. She thought at first that they'd found another access to the sewers, that hadn't been shown on the building plans that Andrew had obtained for them, but then she saw the people chained up along the wall.

Cassie's crossbow came up, and she fired, almost before she was even consciously aware of the vampire that was coming toward her. She was aware of the second vampire that was dusted by a bolt from Donna's bow. There were more vamps in the room, but they were dusted within seconds.

"Six vamps down," Donna reported over her radio. "We've found their larder. Some of their victims are still alive, we're going to need transport for them."

Cassie moved to the people chained to the wall. Some of them were slumped lifelessly on the floor, but others were still alive, and looking at her with a combination of hope and fear in their eyes. "It's going to be okay," she told them quietly. "We're going to get you out of here." She put her hand to the neck of one of the unmoving bodies, lying in its own filth, to check for a pulse. She couldn't feel any, and the body felt cold to her touch. She shook her head at Donna, and moved to the next one, while listening to Vi and Maureen's voices on the radio reporting the dusting of more vampires. Rona's squad had come up from the sewers and joined in the cleanup.

It turned out that a couple of the unconscious people were still alive. They got priority transport to the nearest hospital, after they had been broken free from the chains binding them.

* * *

Jack got the _Air Force Times_ newspaper delivered to him weekly. He liked to keep up to date on what was happening in his old service. He was pleased when he read that General Hammond had received his third star, but he wasn't so sure about him being transferred to the Pentagon. He could only hope that what the paper said about his new duties, heading a new department which was responsible for international cooperation, was some sort of cover story for what he was _really_ doing. He wondered who would be running the SGC with George gone. Cassie got some letters from Sam that mentioned that the project had been taken over by a civilian, named Elizabeth Weir, but Sam couldn't go into any details. She did seem to be cautiously approving of her.

A couple of weeks later Jack was sitting in the lounge, reading his paper. Cassie was there, poring over some demonology books with Andrew. A couple of other Slayers were watching TV. Jack flipped through the paper to the section that listed promotions, to see if anyone he knew was there. He was pleased by one name that he saw. "Hey Cassie! Did Carter tell you she was getting promoted?"

Cassie looked up from her demonology books. "No. She did? Really?"

"Yep," said Jack. "She really did. She's now Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter." Cassie came over to have a look over his shoulder at the paper. Jack kept reading down the list. He froze at the next name that he recognized. "No! They wouldn't! Someone's gone _insane!_"

"What is it?" asked Cassie.

Jack pointed to the name: "Brigadier General Jonathan O'Neill."


	21. Part XXI

**Part XXI**

Jack brought up the rear of their little procession, holding his end of a trunk, following Cassie and Andrew up the stairs, and down the hall in one of the dorms of Cambridge's Queens' College. Andrew got off light in this detail, carrying only one of Cassie's suitcases. He was checking the numbers on doors as they moved down the hall.

"Here it is," he said, stopping in front of one of them. He knocked on the door, and waited for a moment to see if anyone would answer, before he started trying to fish the key Cassie had given him out of his pocket.

The door opened before he could find it. Jack heard a high pitched shriek of "Andrew!" which he was sure wasn't far off what was required to shatter glass. "It's good to see you again! It's been too long." Arms reached out to grab Andrew, and drag him into the room.

Jack followed Cassie through the door, and saw Andrew enveloped in the hug of a tall, dark haired girl. She let go of him after a few seconds, and stepped back to take a better look at him. "You're looking good! You're even looking a little buff! How've you been?"

"I've been good," said Andrew. "You're not looking bad yourself."

Jack couldn't help but agree with Andrew, as he set his end of the trunk down on the floor: she did look good, and his teenaged body was reacting to her the way it did to just about any pretty girl, these days. You'd think that spending a few months surrounded by nubile young women in Cleveland would have inured him to their influence, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect.

The girl smiled at Andrew. "I spent the summer traipsing around China after Buffy. I got lots of exercise."

"Did you see the Great Wall?" asked Andrew.

"Yep, and the Forbidden City, and the Terracotta Warriors, and a lot of places that regular tourists don't get to see. China's got some weird demons." She looked toward Jack and Cassie, and smiled. "So, are you going to introduce me to your friends?"

"Oh!" Andrew looked embarrassed. "Dawn Summers, these are Jack O'Neill, and Cassie Fraiser. I guess that Cassie is going to be your roommate for the year."

Dawn held out her hand. "Hey Cassie, good to meet you in the flesh." They shook hands, and then Dawn turned to Jack. "Hi, Jack." She smiled at him.

Jack silently cursed his hormones, and rubbed his suddenly sweating palm against the seam of his thankfully loose pants before he shook her offered hand. "Hello Dawn."

"So, are you guys here for the Linguistics program?" asked Dawn.

"I am," said Jack. "Cassie's here for the Physics."

Dawn shuddered. "Gyah! Science!"

"You don't like science?" asked Cassie.

"I don't like anything that has too much math in it." Dawn turned back to Jack. "So, Linguistics?"

Jack shrugged. "I've been around, I'm good with languages." And he had spent much too long hanging around with Daniel.

"What do you speak?" asked Dawn.

"Nothing well," said Jack, "but I can get by in Arabic, Farsi, and German. I've also picked up a little Latin, and learned to read some Egyptian hieroglyphics along the way."

"That's an interesting mix."

Jack shrugged again. "Air Force brat. I spent a lot of time kicking around Europe and the Middle East. How about you?"

"I can read Sumerian, and Turkish," said Dawn. "I learned Italian last year, and I picked up some Mandarin and Cantonese this summer."

"Sumerian?" asked Jack. Even Daniel wasn't very good with that one.

"Yeah, it's amazing how many ancient dark rituals are recorded in Sumerian. So, is that all of Cassie's stuff?"

"Oh no!"said Andrew. "This is just the first load."

* * *

Dawn helped them get the rest of Cassie's stuff, and to move Jack and Andrew's things up to the set that they would be sharing. Once everything had been moved to their rooms from the van that the Council had loaned them, she took them to a pub that she had discovered the day before, after she had arrived herself. It wasn't very crowded: international students started a week earlier than most of the others at Cambridge, to give them a chance to get oriented. Most students still hadn't returned from their summer holidays.

They found an open table for themselves, and took seats around it. "Since we're in a civilized country, does anyone else want a beer?" asked Jack.

"Yeah, sure," said Dawn. She'd had wine a few times while she and Buffy had been living in Rome, but she hadn't had much experience with beer, yet. Xander had told her the story of Buffy's first encounter with the beverage—which she had no intention of repeating—but she figured that a glass or two wouldn't hurt.

Cassie and Andrew opted for the beer as well, so Jack ordered a pitcher for all of them. They spent the first little while with Dawn and Andrew catching each other up on what they, and the other Sunnydale survivors, had been up to over the last few months. Jack and Cassie weren't left out of the conversation, since they had come to know some of the survivors themselves, and had seen many of them more recently than Dawn had.

A second pitcher of beer broadened the subjects under discussion. One of them was politics, and the recently announced "resignation" of Vice President Robert Kinsey for "personal reasons." Dawn knew that there was more to it than that, but she had no idea what. The Council's sources had told them that Kinsey had done something a few months back that had seriously pissed off President Hayes, but it had taken a while for his fall from grace to be made public knowledge.

Dawn was surprised by the delight that Jack took in the news. He even raised his glass in a toast. "May he rot in hell!"

"Wasn't your cousin accused of shooting him, a while back?" she asked. "Back when Kinsey was still just a Senator?"

She saw Cassie shoot an indecipherable look Jack's way, but he just grinned. "Yeah, but I knew he didn't do it. If Jack had tried to kill Kinsey, he'd be dead. Too bad, it might have saved some grief, if he'd really done it."

"Didn't hurt your cousin's career any," said Dawn.

"I still haven't figured out what they were thinking. There's no way anyone in their right minds would have made him a general."

"Xander and Faith seemed to like him."

"They did?" asked Jack. "They never gave me that impression. Seems to me that he kept trying to toss them into a cell."

"Yeah, but he was doing it because he thought he was protecting Cassie from a couple of lunatic stalker types," said Dawn. "That impressed them."

"We take care of family," said Jack. "Ever since we— Jack rescued her from that plane wreck, Cassie's been family."

Dawn didn't miss Jack's slip. He counted himself among the people who had rescued Cassie, but she didn't know how that could be. He couldn't have been more than twelve himself when that—or whatever had really happened to her parents—had happened.

Willow had done more digging into Cassie and Jack's histories, and she had uncovered nothing but dead ends. She had constructed enough fake histories for people over the last year to recognize the signs when she saw them. Neither of their official histories were true.

Dawn suppressed a laugh. _No one_ seated around this table had a truthful official history. She certainly wasn't in any position to criticize anyone else over modifications to their records. She was pretty sure that at least Cassie and Jack couldn't claim that anyone's memories had been changed to support the fiction of their pasts. Even Andrew had had a few important incidents—like an attempted armoured car robbery—wiped from his record.

She saw Jack giving her a curious look, and she realized that her expression really didn't suit the serious turn their discussion had taken. "Sorry," she said. "I just got started thinking about family. I mean real family…the sort you make, not the sort you're related to."

Andrew raised his glass "To family."

Everyone picked up a glass, and they all clinked together over the centre of the table. "Family!"

* * *

Classes at Cambridge took up most of Dawn's time. She shared a lot of them with Jack, since they were both in the linguistics program, but she was studying Middle Eastern languages, while Jack was specializing on Nordic and and Celtic. Cassie and Andrew were both following science tracks, but they were all sharing one practical archaeology course.

Outside of classes, there were a lot of other activities for students. There were clubs for people interested in almost every sport imaginable, and for every other sort of activity. Jack had joined the school hockey team, and Andrew was deeply involved in the role playing gaming club. Dawn had joined the fencing and jujutsu clubs.

Jack was a member of the school's aviation club. It took a little time to process the paper work to get all of his FAA qualifications transferred, but once the red tape was all cut through, he was a fully qualified instructor pilot. Dawn added that bit of information to the growing mystery that was Jack O'Neill. She found out that he'd added his instructor's qualification to his airman's certificate while he was still in Cleveland, and that a bunch of the Slayers there had taken lessons from him, but he was still one of the youngest qualified instructors in the world.

Dawn had joined the aviation club too. Partially because she had always wanted to learn how to fly, and partially to try to learn more about Jack, both professionally and personally.

On the professional level, there was the ongoing mystery of just who Jack O'Neill was, and how he had come to acquire his many talents.

On the personal level, Dawn couldn't help but feel attracted to Jack. He was a really cute guy who treated her with respect. His sense of humour reminded her of Xander, and she knew from the story Cassie told of their encounter with vampires in Colorado, and the test that they had run with him against Angel, that he had Xander's courage too. Xander was her gold standard for any guy, and she knew that if she'd been a few years older, she would have given Faith some serious competition, but their age difference had firmly fixed her and Xander into an older brother/kid sister sort of relationship, despite her earlier crush on him.

But Jack was her own age. He wasn't six years older than her, like Xander was.

And she liked the flying.

She liked soaring above the English countryside, her hands on the controls of the plane, feeling the power of the engine, and the air currents buffeting her wings. She liked being in control of the plane.

Right from the start, the first time they had sat in the cockpit together—after hours of ground school—Jack had let her take off. He'd sat there beside her, guiding her, but it had been _her_ hands on the controls, flying the airplane. He had trusted her to do it right. She knew that he had been there, watching over her, ready to take over if the need arose, but it hadn't happened. _She_ had flown the airplane.

Another thing she liked about flying was that it let her spend a lot of time with Jack.

Dawn loved her sister, but when you got right down to it, Buffy had some flaws. One of them was that she had a tough time letting go. Sure, when the chips were down, when the shit was hitting the fan, when it was do or die, Buffy would let Dawn stand on her own, let her look out for herself, but in the intervening times she was always there, always stepping in to take over.

Jack was different. He was there to back her up. He was ready to take over if she made a mistake, but he was willing to let her make the mistake first.

She knew that Jack was just as interested in her, as she was in him. She'd seen the way he looked at her in some of his rare, unguarded moments. And then he'd catch himself, and the look would go away, and he would seem to berate himself for it, like he thought that she was off limits, or something.

_She_ certainly hadn't done anything to discourage his interest. She'd done just about everything she could think of to encourage it. She was sure that she was giving him all the right signals, but he wasn't responding to any of them. If this went on much longer, she just might have to pull an Anya.

* * *

Jack didn't know what he was thinking. He was thirty years older than her! Okay, fine, anyone who looked at them might actually think that she was older than he was, but come on! He knew the truth! He was fifty, and she was barely eighteen.

She did seem to be mature for her age, though. If you defined an adult as someone who knew that death waited for everyone, she qualified. She had lived through the death of her mother. She'd had friends who had died. She had seen her sister die, and be resurrected. (And here he'd thought that Daniel was the only one who'd managed that trick since about 30 AD.) Dawn Summers had seen more death than most SGC veterans.

But she was still a teenager! He shouldn't be feeling this way about her!

* * *

Cambridge was nearly as dead, for the undead, as Colorado Springs had been. The Council had had a presence in the town for centuries, which kept the worst of the demonic world away. Since the old Council hadn't always distinguished between the evil, and not-evil demons, there was also a lack of other supernatural creatures in the neighbourhood.

There was some supernatural activity though. An ancient coven of witches made the town their home. A few other creatures had gravitated to the area in the last couple of years. There were a dozen Slayers attending the university, and they acted as a potent repellant to the nastier demonic species, and made it more attractive to some of the peaceful ones.

There were enough Slayers that they could split up the patrolling duties. Cassie usually only went out one night a week, with one of the other Slayers, or Watchers for company. She enjoyed exploring the back corners of the ancient town, wandering through its cemeteries, reading the markers left behind for people who had died before Columbus had sailed for America. Usually she found it restful.

Not tonight. If there were any evil demons about, they would have heard them coming blocks away.

"What is _wrong_ with him?" asked Dawn, kicking an empty pop can, that clattered away down the alley they were in.

Cassie had been watching Jack and Dawn dance around each other for weeks, and she knew what Dawn was talking about, but she feigned innocence. "Wrong with who? Or should that be whom?"

"Whom," said Dawn. "And you know perfectly well which whom I am talking about: Jack. I know he likes me. Everyone—even Andrew—agrees that he's not gay. I've done everything short of jumping him, but he doesn't _do_ anything!"

Cassie knew what Jack's problem was—and to a certain degree, she sympathized with it—but unless he wanted to get picked up by some cougar, there was no way he was going to find himself a girl 'his own age.' "So, why don't you?" she asked.

"Don't I what?" asked Dawn.

"Jump him," said Cassie. "I do know what his problem is, and frankly, I think that he needs to get over it."

They'd caught up with the can, and Dawn kicked it again. "What _is_ his problem?"

"Sorry," said Cassie. "That's for him to tell you, if he ever decides to. It's not up to me."

* * *

Dawn was still trying to decide whether or not to jump Jack the next Saturday night, though not at just that moment. They were all together in her and Cassie's set, playing a friendly game of poker. She took a card from her hand, and laid it face down on the table in front of her. "I'll take one."

Andrew dealt out a card to her. "One for the lady."

Dawn picked up the card, and placed it into her hand, being careful not to give any sign whether it made her hand any better. Rather that fiddling with her cards, the way Cassie was, she set her hand back face down on the table. She tried not to give any sign of what sort of hand she might have.

Andrew looked at the player next to her. "Jack?"

"I'll stand pat," said Jack, in the same confident tone of voice that he always used when playing poker, no matter what sort of hand he had. Whatever Jack's tells might be, Dawn hadn't learned them yet. He might have a great hand, or nothing but crap. She didn't know.

"Cassie?" asked Andrew.

"Three," said Cassie, as Dawn had already known she would from the way she had kept arranging and rearranging the cards in her hand.

Andrew gave Cassie her three cards, and the look of disgust on Cassie's face made it plain to everyone—even Andrew—that she still had nothing.

"And the dealer takes two," said Andrew, laying aside a pair of cards and taking two more for himself. His poker face was better than Cassie's, but Dawn knew that he wasn't happy with what he had picked up.

Dawn had started this round with two pairs, kings and tens, and she had just picked up another ten, giving her a full house. She tossed a coin into the growing pot in the middle of the table. "50p."

Jack smiled at her. "Ooh, big spender." He pushed a one pound coin out into the pot. "I'll see your 50, and raise you 50."

"Cassie?" asked Andrew.

Cassie tossed her cards onto the table. "I'm out."

Andrew sat and thought for a bit, and then tossed a one pound coin of his own into the pot. "I'm in. 50p to you," he told Dawn.

Dawn was a little surprised by that, but she was pretty sure she kept it off her face. Andrew couldn't bluff worth a damn, she knew he had nothing. The thing was that _he_ didn't know that she knew, and she was pretty sure that Jack knew as well. It didn't matter, whatever Andrew did had no effect on what her next move was.

Dawn tossed another 50p coin into the pot, and then followed it up with two more pounds.

Jack considered her for a moment, and then pushed everything he had, about 20 pounds, into the pot. "I'm all in."

Andrew tossed his cards onto the table. "I'm out."

'He has to be bluffing,' thought Dawn. He'd sat pat, the whole hand. The chance of him having been dealt something better than her full house was tiny.

But they'd been playing for a while. That tiny per-hand chance did happen. He could have been dealt it, this time, or maybe he just had something that he thought was good enough. Even if he knew she had a good hand, he couldn't know _how_ good.

She looked at Jack carefully. She still hadn't been able to spot his tells. Everyone had tells. Something that gave away when they thought they had a winning hand, and when they were bluffing. Dawn had learned to play poker from Spike, and he had taught her how to spot tells in others, and in herself. He had identified tell after tell in her, and schooled her to suppress them.

But for every tell you suppressed, there was another: sometimes more subtle and harder to see, but they were always there. Dawn knew that, and she knew that Jack knew too. She was also pretty sure that Jack knew what her tells were, and she hadn't figured his out yet.

So Jack knew she had a good hand. The question was: was his better?

She looked at Jack. He was looking like he always looked when he played poker: confident. Even if he had nothing, he had the same look. Seven high crap, or a royal flush, he looked the same. She wondered again how someone her own age, who hadn't grown up on the Hellmouth with a vampire as a tutor, could have such poise.

There was only one thing to do. The odds really were in her favour. "I call." She laid her hand, face up, down on the table.

She still couldn't read Jack as he started to lay down his own cards. There was a sudden flash of light, and she was somewhere else. She, Andrew, Jack and Cassie were standing on a platform, surrounded on three sides by windows looking out over…

Dawn's mouth dropped open. She could see the Earth below her, blue and green, with white swirls of clouds. Above her was a black sky, blacker than any night sky she had ever seen.

"Oh, for crying out loud!" said Jack.


	22. Part XXII

**Part XXII**

Dawn pulled herself away from the spectacular view out the windows, and turned toward Jack. He hadn't sounded frightened, or surprised to have been suddenly transported into orbit over the Earth. He sounded annoyed.

"Oh my god!" cried Andrew. "We're in space! We're in a spaceship! In space! We've been kidnapped by aliens!"

"Well, that's new," said Dawn, still looking at the surprisingly calm Jack. "I've been kidnapped by vampires, demons, and a hellgod. This is the first time aliens have done it."

"Jack?" said Cassie. "What's going on?"

Dawn didn't miss that Cassie was looking to Jack for an explanation too: like she expected him to know what had happened to them. "Jack?" she asked, herself.

Jack sighed. "We're on an Asgard ship." Dawn couldn't help but notice that Cassie relaxed a bit on hearing that.

"Asgard?" asked Andrew. "Home of the Norse gods? Across the Rainbow Bridge?"

Jack looked around. "No rainbow bridge, but yeah, those Asgard." He moved away from the observation platform that they had arrived upon, and into the darker interior of the ship. "And whichever one of them is responsible for this—" Jack's voice rose in volume. "_—better get his little grey butt in here with an explanation!_" His voice reverberated, like he had yelled into a large, empty chamber.

The others followed him. "It would be neat to meet Thor," said Andrew. "He's so big, and strong, and has that nice, long, blond, hair."

"Red," said Dawn. "Stan Lee messed up on that one. Thor was known as 'Red Beard' in all the myths."

"He's actually bald," said Jack, "and about four feet tall. _And if he's behind this, he can show up any time now to tell us why!_" They had arrived in a large room that was decorated—if you could apply the word 'decorated' to something so drab—in shades of grey.

Jack went over to a sloping panel that had what looked like glowing oval stones stuck to it. "Carter told me how to work one of these things, once," he muttered. He took one of the stones, and moved it. The lights went out. "Oops." He quickly moved the stone back where it had been, and the lights came back on.

"Jack, what's going on?" asked Dawn. She watched the expressions play across his face, as he considered his options. She knew that lying was one of the things that crossed his mind, but he had quickly rejected the idea. His poker face hadn't taken over his face, either. He was showing her what he was really feeling … at least she thought he was.

"Earth has been in communication with aliens for a few years now," said Jack. "One of the friendly races we've contacted is the Asgard."

"So, we've been kidnapped by some friendly aliens?" asked Dawn.

"Probably," said Jack. "Most of the Asgard are."

"Most?" asked Andrew.

"Well, there was one who was a bit of a 'mad scientist' type, but I doubt if it's him. _And if it is you, Loki, I'm going to toss you out an airlock!_" He got no reply, except for the echo of his voice.

Dawn looked around the chamber they were in. It was very large, and very empty. It made her feel very small. "Where are they?" she asked. "If this is an alien ship, where are the aliens?"

"Asgard ships are highly automated," said Jack. "They don't really need any crew at all, and often only have a few onboard." He looked around too. "But someone usually shows up by now."

"My apologies, O'Neill …" Dawn spun toward the new voice, and was astonished to see that it came from a creature that seemed to have stepped off the cover of _The Weekly World News_. "… but I wished to give you a chance to explain what was happening to your companions, to prevent them from panicking."

"It's a Roswell Grey!" cried Andrew. "Oh god! I don't want to be anal probed!"

The short grey creature blinked its large eyes, and looked at Andrew. "I have no interest in probing any of your orifices."

"Thor!" said Jack.

"Thor?" asked Dawn.

"Perhaps you should make introductions, O'Neill," said the little grey alien.

"Uh, I guess." Jack looked a little nonplussed for a moment. "Ah, Dawn Summers, Andrew Wells, Cassie Fraiser, I'd like you to meet Thor, Supreme Commander of the Asgard Fleet."

Thor nodded his head to both her and Andrew in turn. "Dawn Summers, Andrew Wells." He turned towards Cassie, and gave her a deeper bow. "Cassie Fraiser. My condolences for the death of your mother. Your species was diminished by her loss."

Cassie didn't seem to know what to make of that statement. "Ah … thank you."

"I would like to welcome you all aboard the _Samantha Carter_," said Thor.

"_Samantha Carter_?" asked Dawn. "Why would an alien name its spaceship after Cassie's guardian?"

Jack snorted. "Because she blew up the _O'Neill_!"

"_What?_" cried Dawn.

"In our war with the Replicators, Samantha Carter recognized that it was necessary to sacrifice our new flagship, the _O'Neill_, to gain a tactical advantage," said Thor. "The next _O'Neill_ class ship was named in her honour."

"But why was your flagship named 'O'Neill?'" asked Andrew.

"Ancient history!" said Jack. "More to the point: what are we doing here now?"

"I noticed that you were in the company of a person steeped in mystical energy, a Chosen One, and the Key," said Thor. "I felt that the time was ripe to make myself known to them."

It seemed like Dawn's heart had skipped a beat. "The Key?" she asked.

"Yes." Thor blinked at her. "We have been keeping watch over the Key for many millennia. It is said that it has the power to unite all paths."

"Said by whom?" asked Jack.

"What paths?" asked Andrew.

"Many races have chosen to take different paths, in their quest for advancement," said Thor. "The Ancients chose the path of Ascension; the Asgard have chosen the path of technology; the Nox, and the Furlings have taken different paths."

"Paths to where?" asked Andrew.

"Enlightenment, peace, understanding of the universe," said Thor.

"In other words, forty-two," said Dawn.

"What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" asked Andrew.

"I do not understand," said Thor.

"It's the ultimate answer," said Cassie. "To Life, the Universe, and Everything. It's forty-two."

"And the question is: 'What do you get if you multiply six by nine?'" said Andrew. "It works in base thirteen."

Thor blinked a few more times. "I still do not understand. How can that be the ultimate question, or answer? O'Neill?"

"Sorry pal, I'm as confused as you are," said Jack.

"Doesn't matter," said Dawn. "The answer doesn't matter. The question doesn't really matter either. The only thing that matters is that there _is_ a question. If you think that you've found an answer to everything, then either your answer is wrong, or you've been asking the wrong questions. The important questions are all open ended. Their answers lead to more questions. If you think that you're on the path to the One True Answer, you're probably in a dead end, or that light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. So why did you name a whole class of spaceships after Jack, here?" Dawn hoped that her question would divert them away from the subject of the Key.

"The Asgard have been observing Humanity for thousands of years," said Thor. "In O'Neill we see the great potential of your species. We believe that you have the promise to become the Fifth Race."

"Huh?"

"There were once four great races in this galaxy," said Thor. "The Ancients, the Furlings, the Nox, and the Asgard. The Ancients chose the path of Ascension, and left this plane of existence behind. The Furlings and the Nox turned inward. The Furlings are gone, and the Nox rarely take an interest in anything outside of their own world any longer. The Asgard are a dying race. We hope that Humanity may become our heirs."

"You're dying?" asked Dawn.

Thor twitched in something that might have been his attempt at a shrug. He didn't really have the shoulders to pull it off properly. "We thought that we had found the One True Answer. It led us into a dead end from which I fear there is no escape."

"And you think that the Key may give you a way out?" asked Cassie.

'Damn!' thought Dawn.

Thor shook his head. "We have been studying the Key for millennia. Nothing that we have learned of it has given us any clue before now, though I must admit that she has provided me with some insights, in this conversation."

"Um…you're saying that Dawn here, is this Key that you've been studying for thousands of years?" asked Jack. "She doesn't look that old."

"Gee, thanks Jack!"

"That the Key could be moulded into human form is something that we had not ever considered possible," said Thor. "It presented us with an opportunity."

"An opportunity?" asked Dawn, wondering just what this creature had in mind.

"Yes," said Thor. "This is the first time that we have ever been able to communicate directly with the Key. You have already given me something to think about, and I thank you for that."

"You're welcome, I guess," said Dawn. "So, you just wanted to talk to me?"

"Yes," said Thor.

"You couldn't just phone?"

"If I had telephoned, would you have believed me?"

"I guess not. Maybe next time."

"What was that about the Key being moulded into human form?" asked Jack.

"The Key has existed for untold millennia," said Thor. "Four years ago, it was given human form, as Dawn Summers."

"You're only four years old?" asked Jack.

"In the same sense that you are only one year old," said Thor.

"What?" asked Dawn.

"This instantiation of Jack O'Neill is only one year old," said Thor.

"Huh?"

"A renegade Asgard scientist wishing to study Jack O'Neill attempted to create a copy of him. He was not completely successful."

"Someone tried to copy you?" asked Dawn.

"No, I'm the less than successful copy," said Jack. "The original is now General Jack O'Neill."

"So you…"

"I remember all of his life," said Jack. "I have all the memories of a fifty year old Air Force colonel. I have all of his training, but I'm stuck in this kid's body."

"Huh," said Dawn. "That's different." She looked at Cassie. "Since we seem to be in revelations mode, what's your story? I know that your official history has been faked too. You weren't another alien science experiment, were you?"

Cassie glanced toward Jack, and he gave her a nod. "Not exactly. I'm not really a Canadian. I wasn't born on Earth. My home world was called Hanka, but there was a plague there. It killed everyone, my family, our village. I was the only survivor. SG-1—Sam, Jack, Teal'c and Daniel—found me, and brought me back to Earth. Mom adopted me."

"Wow!" said Dawn. "We had a lot of theories, but that's… Wow!"

"It's also classified," said Jack.

"What?"

"Cassie, me, Thor. It's all classified information. You can't tell anyone about it."

"Don't the people have the right to know?" asked Andrew.

"Just like they have the right to know about the vampires and demons and Slayers and stuff?" asked Jack. "We've been keeping quiet about aliens for the same reason you've been keeping quiet about the demons. Most people aren't ready to know."

"Who does know?" asked Dawn. "Is the US government keeping this all to themselves?"

"No," said Jack. "All the permanent members of the UN Security Council know about it, as well as the G8 countries, and some of our other allies. We were the ones who first made contact, but we're sharing a lot of what we're learning."

"If Cassie was born on another world…could there be other Slayers out there, on other planets?" asked Andrew.

"How many planets have people on them?" asked Dawn. "How did they get there?"

"There are thousands of worlds that have human populations," said Jack. "Mostly they were transplanted from Earth by aliens, thousands of years ago."

"So, you just kidnap people and dump them on some other world?" Dawn asked Thor.

"No," said Thor. "The Asgard do not kidnap. We would approach a village that was in distress from famine, disease, marauders or other threats, and offer to relocate them to a new, safer, land. We only moved those who accepted our offer: took them to a new world, and gave them aid until they were self sufficient there. We see such promise in Humanity that we wanted to ensure its survival, should any cataclysm befall this world."

"So, there could be thousands of worlds that have had Slayers called on them," said Andrew. "There could be millions of Slayers!"

"That is very unlikely," said Thor. "In all the time that we have been observing Humans, there has never been a Chosen One called on another world. The energy that infuses the Chosen is limited to the speed of light. The force that empowered them all has yet to reach even the nearest stars, and it will be many decades before it can reach the closest of inhabited worlds."

"What happens then?" asked Dawn.

"I do not believe that anything will happen," said Thor. "By the time the energy reaches any other planet, it will be so attenuated that it will be lost in the noise. This sort of energy is very rare in the universe. Earth is the only currently inhabited world that we know of with an appreciable amount of it. Even if the pulse is still strong enough to trigger the activation of a Chosen One when it reaches a new world, there will be no mystical energy there for the Chosen One to draw upon to give her strength."

"You know about this magic stuff, then?" asked Jack. "You never mentioned anything about it before."

"The mystical and the technological do not mix well," said Thor. "In many ways they are antithetical to one another. We have been able to observe the effects of 'magic' as you call it, but we have been unable to understand them. The Furlings were a species that worked with the mystical, and they were never able to explain to our scientists how it worked, in terms that we could understand. They had similar problems trying to understand our science. Humanity is the only species that we have ever encountered that is able to use both, but it seems that the divide still exists: your scientists reject any mystical explanation for any phenomena, and your mystics reject the scientific. The people that we have met at the SGC have almost all been scientists, and would not have responded well to talk of 'magic,' especially since the Asgard would have been unable to provide them with a demonstration.

"However, since you have been associating with the Key, a Chosen One, and a Mystic, I thought that this would be a good opportunity."

"You might try talking to Carter about this," said Jack. "She knows about Cassie, and has been talking with one of Dawn's friends about how magic works. She still doesn't understand it, but she's seen some of the things it can do."

"I will do that, O'Neill."

"So, you grabbed us all, just because you wanted to say 'Hi?'" asked Dawn.

"I made myself known to you, because I desired to speak with the Key, and to make myself known to the Chosen," said Thor. "Something is coming, a new threat to your galaxy. The Key and the Chosen will have a role to play in defeating it."

"What sort of threat?" asked Jack, and Dawn together.

"I do not know," said Thor. "We received a message through a … device … that was given to us by the Furlings for us to communicate with them. It had been quiescent for millennia. It warned of an impending danger, and said that the Key and the Chosen would be needed to defeat it."

"Great!" said Dawn. "Now we're getting the cryptic warnings from little grey aliens. Did this message have anything useful to say, such as how the Key would be needed?"

"It did not, but it did contain a warning to beware of false prophets," said Thor.

"A warning from a prophet to beware false prophets … there's an irony," said Jack. "Who was the warning from? The Furlings?"

Thor shrugged again. "They were the only beings that had sent us messages through this channel in the past, but there was nothing in the message itself that said who it was from. We requested more information, but received no response."

"Typical," said Dawn. "Just once I'd like to receive an unambiguous warning, that contained some useful advice for what to do about one of these things."

"I understand your frustration," said Thor.

"So that's it?" asked Jack. "Beamed us up, said 'hi,' gave us our warning. Anything else?"

"There is not," said Thor. "It has been a pleasure to speak with you all. I will now return you to your point of origin."

"Just a sec—" Jack was cut off by the flash of the Asgard transporter, and Dawn found herself back in her seat at their poker table.

"I hate when he does that," said Jack

"That was sooo cool!" said Andrew. "I can't believe I met a Roswell Grey!"

"You can't tell anyone about it!" said Jack.

"It's not like anyone would believe him," said Dawn. "But we are going to have to tell the Council about this."

"I'd really rather that you didn't," said Jack.

"The whole Council doesn't need to hear all of it," said Dawn. "There are only a few people who know about the Key. They need to hear about this, too."

"How many people know about that?" asked Cassie.

"Outside of this room, four," said Dawn. "Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles. I think maybe it's time to add a few more to the list: Faith, and Principal Wood for two."

"Maybe some people at the SGC as well," said Jack. "I mean, if we're getting warnings naming you from our alien allies, I think we should involve them. I'm going to have to report that I've spoken to Thor, and that he revealed himself to you."

"How many people are you planning to tell?" asked Dawn.

"Half a dozen, tops. The other me, Daniel and Carter for starters. It might be time to bring Teal'c in on the secret too. Probably General Hammond as well."

"Who's he?" asked Dawn.

"He was the head of the SGC, up until about six months ago. Now he's in command of Homeworld Security."

"Homeworld Security?"

"That's the blanket organization that's responsible for coordinating the international defence of the Earth. Sort of like what NATO was during the Cold War."

"Can we trust him?" asked Dawn.

"I trust him," said Cassie.

"I'm still not sure I want to tell anyone else about the Key," said Dawn.

"I think we should sleep on it," said Jack. "Not make any hasty decisions. We've had a eventful night, I think it's time to turn in." He started to get up from the table.

"There is one more thing to take care of," said Dawn.

"What's that?" asked Jack.

"My full house beat your flush." Dawn reached out and started to rake in the poker pot with her hands.

* * *

Dawn couldn't sleep. She tried, but after laying in bed for an hour with thoughts of what she had learned rattling around in her head she gave up, and got out of bed. She decided to go for a walk. Maybe the fresh air would clear her head a bit.

The late autumn night air was cold, barely above freezing, so Dawn had bundled herself up in a sweater and jacket before she went out. As she approached the Mathematical Bridge over the river Cam, she wasn't entirely surprised to see Jack was standing on it, wearing a battered old leather jacket, leaning against the wooden rail, looking out over the water. She walked out onto the bridge, and leaned against the rail beside him.

He seemed to know who she was, without even looking. "So, mystical key, huh?" he asked.

"Yep, and you're a clone," said Dawn. "Is that why you've been acting so weird? Because you figure that you're twice my age?"

"At least!" said Jack.

"You're looking at this all wrong," said Dawn. "Even if you are twice my age, that's still half the average age of Buffy's boyfriends."

"From what I've heard about her love life, I think it should be considered an object lesson in why _not_ to have a relationship with someone that much older."

"Oh, I see," said Dawn. "You don't think we should be together because I'm so much older than you."

"_What?_" asked Jack.

"You were made a year ago," said Dawn. "I was made four years ago. That means I'm four times your age. You're right. It could never work."

"That's not what I meant!"

"Or looking at it another way, you're fifty, and I'm who knows how many thousand years old. This age thing is looking worse and worse for you. I'd be practically robbing the cradle."

"No you wouldn't!"

Dawn decided that it was time to stop talking about it. "Jack, shut up." She grabbed his jacket, pulled him close, and kissed him.


	23. Part XXIII

**Part XXIII**

At first, Jack resisted, trying to gently push her away, but that didn't last long. Soon his arms went around her, and he was kissing her back. Dawn hadn't kissed all that many guys before. The less said about that vamp on Halloween — or the guy with the jacket — the better. There had been Antonio in Rome — she'd thought that he'd been a pretty good kisser — but Jack …

Dawn sighed when their lips finally broke apart. "I totally get it now."

Jack was still holding her in his arms, and looking at her face. He grinned at her. "Get what?"

"Why Buffy goes for older guys."

"So, you admit that I'm older now."

"I admit that you're older than any of the other guys that I've kissed … and you're much better at it."

"So, kissed a lot of guys before?"

"Not that many. How about you?"

"Can't say I've kissed many guys either," said Jack.

"Jack!" Dawn pounded her fist lightly against his chest. "You know what I meant."

"Yeah, I know. And I hadn't really kissed all that many girls either. I had a couple of girlfriends when I was in high school — the first time — and then I went to the Academy, and didn't really have much opportunity to date for the next four years. The Academy didn't admit women until a couple of years after I graduated."

"When was that? The Stone Age?"

"1974."

"Close enough."

Dawn rested her head against Jack's shoulder for a moment, still holding him. "So, what about after '74?" she asked. "Kissed lots of women in the last 30 years?"

"No," said Jack. "Mostly, it was just one. I spent a lot of those years married."

Dawn pulled away a bit. "Is that something the original you got to keep?"

Jack shook his head. "No. I've been divorced for nearly ten years now. … We had a son. … Charlie. … He died. I … I blamed myself. Sara … I drove her away, I was so wrapped up in my own pain that I couldn't see hers."

Dawn hugged him close. "Oh Jack, I'm so sorry."

* * *

Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter walked through the corridors of the SGC. It was the middle of the evening watch, and the hallways were mostly empty. She liked to prowl the corridors at night: it gave her a chance to think without interruptions. There was a flash of light, and she found herself standing in front of Thor.

* * *

Jack stood there on the bridge, with Dawn holding him, and his arms around her. He knew that she understood. Lots of people had said they were sorry when they heard about Charlie, but Dawn _understood_ that kind of pain as well as anyone who hadn't lost a child themselves could, but he couldn't let himself dwell on that. "So, what brings you out here in the middle of the night?" he asked.

"I couldn't sleep," said Dawn. "I mean, I was just abducted by an alien. That's not something that happens every day … not even to me."

"You'd be surprised how often he's done that to me …" Jack took in the look she was giving him. "… or maybe you wouldn't."

"So, if this is an everyday occurrence for you, what are you doing out here on this bridge?" asked Dawn.

"It's not exactly an _everyday_ occurrence!"

"You're dodging the question."

"It was either come out here, or shoot Andrew," admitted Jack. "He was driving me crazy with all his questions!"

"I'm surprised he was so restrained while we were up there," said Dawn.

"I think he was in shock," said Jack, "but he got over it."

"So, why didn't he follow you out here?"

"Handcuffs, and duct tape," said Jack.

"You didn't!"

"No, but I threatened to."

"I wouldn't expect that threats alone would be enough."

"No, but I gave him a carrot too. I had to tell him that the _Wormhole X-Treme!_ head writer was an extra-terrestrial, and a lot of it was based on true stuff, so now he's busy re-watching all the episodes."

"Wait a minute … that crappy sci-fi show he's always running on about is written by an _alien_, and it's _true?_"

"Not all that much of it, but yeah, some of the background stuff isn't too far off the mark."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really, but they got a lot more stuff wrong than they got right."

"It's still really weird, even by my standards," said Dawn.

"Mine too," said Jack, "but the question remains: Where do we go from here?"

"_When does the end appear?  
When do the trumpets cheer?  
Where to we go from here?" _Dawn sang softly.

"What?" asked Jack.

"Sorry, Sunnydale flashback," said Dawn. "Anyone tell you the story about our musical extravaganza?"

"I've heard a couple of things about it. And I thought that life at the SGC was weird."

* * *

"Thor!" said Colonel Carter. "What am I doing here?"

"I have been told that you are aware of of 'magic'," said Thor.

"What do you mean?" asked Carter.

"I have recently met with the O'Neill clone, the Slayer Cassandra, and the mystics Dawn Summers and Andrew Wells," said Thor. "They informed me that you were aware of 'magic'."

* * *

They didn't come to any real conclusions about what they were going to do next. Dawn agreed to let Jack report what had happened — and to pass on Thor's warning — to his General Hammond, and to tell him that Thor knew about Slayers and magic. He could also tell the General that the Council knew where the Key was, but he agreed not to say anything about it being her.

He agreed to let Dawn report the meeting with Thor to the Council, including the part about Cassie being from another planet — as long as Cassie was okay with her doing that too — but she agreed not to say anything about him being Jack O'Neill's clone.

They didn't really know what more to do about Thor's warning. As far as Dawn was concerned it was just about as useless as every other such warning that they had received over the years. Why couldn't such things ever be straightforward?

* * *

Jack read over the contact report that he'd typed up for General Hammond. It looked like it was as complete as his agreement with Dawn could make it, describing how Thor had taken him, Cassie, Andrew and Dawn into his spaceship for a meeting; how Cassie had been taken because Thor knew about the Slayers, and both Andrew and Dawn had had magical signatures. He included Thor's warning that something bad was coming, and that both the Slayers and something called the Key would be needed to defeat it, but he left out the fact that he knew who the Key was.

He knew that the bit about Thor knowing about magic and the Slayers would come as a surprise to his superiors, but he already knew that Homeworld Security knew about those things. He'd been a little surprised when he'd heard from George that Homeworld Security was responsible for protecting the Earth from more than just the aliens: it was responsible for monitoring the "sub-terrestrial" threats too, but when he thought more about it, it had made sense. He'd learned from the Council, and his visit from Major Finn, that many of the world's governments knew something about what the Slayers did. That responsibility being handed off to Homeworld Security was reasonable.

His private correspondence with General Hammond had also made it clear to him that the US government felt that it was best to leave the handling of the supernatural in the hands of the professionals. They had learned their lesson from the Initiative. They were monitoring the actions of the Council, and were prepared to offer whatever support they could, but they had no plans to step in and take control of what they were doing.

* * *

_The Anacreontic Society_ had existed in Oxford since at least the eighteenth century. There were branches of it in the other university towns scattered across the nation, and in London itself, though it had acquired new quarters there, since its original lodgings had been in a building that had been blown up a few years previously. Most people believed that the destruction of the Society's London lodgings was just collateral damage from a terrorist bombing that had taken out a much larger building, which had had other, more likely targets in it. Why would terrorists attack a music and wine appreciation society? (Though which of those was appreciated more waxed and waned over the decades.) It was also known to be a bit of an "old boys' club" though its membership had never been exclusively male.

_The Anacreontic Society_'s membership had changed a lot in the last couple of years. It was still one of the most exclusive clubs in the nation, with memberships given out by invitation only, and no one outside of the Society knew how its members were chosen. All through its history, the club had been known for its egalitarianism. Though membership in the club often came with family connections, it wasn't limited to the aristocracy, or the rich, or the male. People from all backgrounds were invited to join, but throughout most of its history, it was still mainly a 'boys' club.' That had changed in recent years. You were more likely to see young women entering or leaving one of their buildings these days.

_The Anacreontic Society_ was a front for the Watcher's Council. It had provided a place in the university towns where new Watchers could gather, and learn about the more esoteric aspects of their trade. Now it served as a place where the new Slayers attending the universities could meet, and practice their skills without outside observers.

It was a continual source of amusement to Dawn that when she pushed the button for the doorbell, it played the opening chords of _The Star Spangled Banner._ When she'd asked Giles why such a British society would choose the American national anthem as their theme music, he'd just laughed, and told her to research it for herself.

Today, she had come the Society's building in Oxford to take part in a teleconference with the rest of the Council's Board. Once everyone was online, and the initial greetings had been taken care of, she told everyone the reason she had called for this meeting: "Well, I've got good news, and I've got bad news."

"What's the good news?" asked Xander.

"I've learned Jack and Cassie's secret," said Dawn.

"And the bad news?" asked Giles.

"Andrew knows too."

"Why's that bad news?" asked Buffy.

"Because Cassie's an alien," said Dawn.

There were several seconds of silence in the room.

"She's a _what?_" asked Faith, eventually.

"Alien; extra-terrestrial; not born on this planet," said Dawn. "From another world."

"No way!" said Caridad.

"Way!" said Dawn. "Andrew is completely freaking out about it. It turns out that his favourite TV show is based on a real Air Force program."

"Wait a minute," said Xander. "Andrew's favourite show is that _Wormhole X-Treme!_ thing."

"Yep," said Dawn, "And you've met the prototypes for most of the characters in it."

"You mean Colonel Danning is…"

"Colonel O'Neill," said Dawn.

"And Stacy Monroe?" asked Willow.

"Major Carter," said Dawn.

"Let me guess," said Faith. "Grell was based on Teal."

"Teal'c" said Dawn. "Do all of you guys watch that show?"

"Well, no," said Giles. "Only three episodes were ever aired. I suppose that the Dr. Levant character was based on Jonas Quinn."

"You too, Giles?" asked Dawn. She'd known that mentioning _Wormhole X-Treme!_ would distract Xander, but she was surprised that the rest of them had followed him into the digression.

"No … ah … yes … I guess. How many television shows are there that give a central role to a linguist?"

"I see your point," said Dawn, "but I think that Dr. Levant was based more on Daniel Jackson."

"Good Lord!" said Giles.

"I hate when he says that," said Buffy.

"Daniel Jackson is an Egyptologist who had some … unorthodox theories on the origin of the Great Pyramid, and some of the other ancient Egyptian monuments. I'm afraid that he's become something of a laughingstock in academia."

"He is something less than a laughingstock in the U.S. Air Force, and among short grey aliens," said Dawn.

"Short grey aliens?" asked Xander.

"Yep," said Dawn. "We can now list 'aliens' among the things that have kidnapped me, but it seems that this one was friendly. It only wanted to have a chat with the Key."

"What's the Key?" asked Caridad.

"I am," said Dawn.

"Dawn?" asked Buffy, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"They need to know," said Dawn. "They need to know that the Monks of Dagon put the Key into me." Her eyes flicked between the images of Buffy, Xander, Willow and Giles on the monitors, and saw that they all caught her meaning. She wasn't telling anyone that the monks had actually created Dawn, and everyone's memories of her…yet.

"Why do they need to know?" asked Giles.

"Because the alien that kidnapped me did so to deliver a prophecy," said Dawn.

Everyone in the video-conference groaned.


	24. Part XXIV

_**Part XXIV**_

Whatever it was that Thor's warning was about seemed to be taking its time to develop. All of the Council's sources, both mundane and mystical, were reporting no unusual activity, and neither were they getting any reports through Jack or Cassie of any unusual events on the extraterrestrial front. Neither of them was in any position to read any daily mission reports, but they both had access to channels that assured them that there weren't any big changes happening. In fact, from the little that they did hear, it seemed that things were going well in the fight against the Goa'uld.

Giles had put several of the Council's researchers to work, combing through the Egyptian sections of their archives, and they had come up with several accounts of parasitic snake demons, and people with glowing eyes. Jack had read through their translations of the accounts, and hadn't found anything that looked like it might be relevant to anything that the SGC was currently involved with. He made copies of the untranslated versions, that he planned to give to Daniel for Christmas.

Dawn had other, more immediate, problems on her mind: exams. The Michaelmas term was coming to an end, and a lot of her time was taken up by studying. Jack was taking up a lot of her time too. The dance that they had been doing around each other for the past couple of months now included a lot more dancing, and touching, and kissing, and groping, but he was still holding off on taking the next step … which was okay with Dawn, for the moment, but she didn't want him to take _too_ much time. She was pretty certain that with the signals she was giving him, any normal eighteen year old would have taken her to bed by now, but then, Jack wasn't a normal eighteen year old. If she'd wanted normal, she'd had her choice of a dozen guys in her classes who had expressed an interest in her, ranging from the crude to the subtle, but none of them held any attraction for her. A few of them reminded her of Antonio, from Rome. They'd be fun, but they weren't ready to face her world. Jack on the other hand…

She was taking an afternoon off from studying, to go flying with Jack. Cassie had acted a little weird before she'd left their set, making her put on a more conservative blouse over the tiny, tight, T-shirt that she had planned to wear—and the T-shirt had shown off her tits so well. Still, leaving the blouse unbuttoned, with the front tails tied together under her breasts worked even better. Jack looked happy with what she was wearing when she'd shown up for the start of her lesson.

They'd booked one of the club's planes for three hours, and they had spent the first two doing touch and goes, engine out drills, and forward slips on landings. They practised turning while maintaining a constant altitude, and even some instrument practice, with Dawn wearing the foggles, which made it impossible for her to see anything out through the cockpit windows but still see her instruments. The skies were mostly clear, but Jack had directed her toward one large, fluffy, white cloud and told her to fly into it. Then she had done a one hundred and eighty degree turn, watching her artificial horizon, altitude, and compass until she flew back out into clear air. She was pleased that she'd come out of the cloud within ten feet of her initial altitude.

They still had an hour left when Jack told her to land. Dawn was a little surprised when, instead of having her apply the throttle to take off again in another touch and go, he told her to taxi back to the hanger. "What's up?" she asked, after they came to a stop, and she'd killed the engine. She started to undo her seatbelt.

"Stay there," said Jack, undoing his own seatbelt, and opening his door. "It's time for you to solo."

Dawn froze in her seat. "What?"

"After I'm out, I want you to do three circuits around the pattern, doing a full stop each time, before you take off again," said Jack. "When you're done, bring the plane back here."

"Are you sure?" asked Dawn.

"Of course I'm sure." Jack climbed out of the plane. "You've already done this dozens of times. The only difference is that this time, you'll have less dead weight in the airplane." He closed the door, and gave it a couple of slaps with his hand. "Go!" he shouted, and backed away from the plane.

* * *

Jack saw the engine start, and the plane started to taxi away from him. He saw Dawn glance back over her shoulder at him, and he gave her a wave. He watched her until she turned the plane onto the taxi-way. Jack went back into the hanger where Cassie was waiting with a radio tuned to the tower's frequency. He heard Dawn asking for permission to take off.

For all of Jack's flying experience, this was new for him. His instructor's ticket was something that Colonel Jack O'Neill had never punched. He'd seen trainees through a lot of different programs, and had checked out experienced pilots on new aircraft (and spaceships) but this was the first time that he'd ever had to sit back, and watch while a novice pilot that he had trained took her first solo flight. It was a nerve wracking experience, even though he knew that Dawn was more than ready. Watching Dawn fly around the circuit, he knew how his other self must feel, sending teams through the Stargate, while staying behind in the relative safety of the SCG. He hated it, but he knew that it was necessary. One of a commander's most important duties was to train the people who would replace him. He knew that he'd done his duty with Carter, and Dawn— well, he wasn't her commander, but he'd done his duty as her flight instructor. She was ready for this.

* * *

After her third landing, Dawn taxied the plane back to the hanger where she saw Jack and Cassie waiting for her with grins on their faces that must have been almost as wide as the one she knew was on her own.

She shut down the engine, and leapt from the plane into Jack's waiting arms, giving him a big kiss while Cassie dumped a bottle of water over her. She then found out why Cassie had made her change her blouse: Jack produced a set of shears out his back pocket, and used them to cut the back tail off her shirt.

"It's tradition," said Jack, holding up the fragment of her blouse. "In the old days of open cockpits, the instructor used to sit behind the student, and would tug on their shirt-tail when they wanted to get their attention. Once they'd soloed, they didn't need their shirt tails anymore. I think I'm going to frame this one."

"But I'm nowhere near not needing more instruction," said Dawn.

"The old days were simpler," said Jack. "There were hardly any instruments, no Air Traffic Control, and the skies were a lot less crowded, making it a lot less likely for you to run into anything, other than the ground."

* * *

There was a celebratory dinner at one of their favourite student pubs that evening with most of their friends. Some of Cassie's fellow Slayers, and others who were attending the university for Watcher training, along with other friends. Some of them were also celebrating having finished all of their exams, so the beer was flowing freely. Dawn had more than she usually did, but since she still had one more exam on Monday, she didn't get nearly as drunk as some of the others. She had already learned that having a hangover was not conducive to studying, and with her having taken Saturday off, she'd really have to hit the books on Sunday.

She had other plans for tonight, though. She was quite content to lean on Jack a bit as they walked back to the Fisher Building, where they lived.

When they reached her and Cassie's set, they paused at the door to kiss. After an indeterminate interval, Jack started to pull away, but Dawn stopped him. "Come inside," she told him.

* * *

They lay together on her bed, kissing and cuddling with each other. Dawn liked the feel of Jack's hands on her body, and his lips on hers. She also liked the way his body felt under her hands. She pulled her mouth away from his, and looked into his brown eyes. She liked his eyes. She liked his face, and his arms, and his legs. In fact, there wasn't anything that she didn't like about him. She finalized the decision that she'd made earlier that day.

Jack saw the change in her face, and he matched it with a quizzical expression of his own. "What?" he asked.

"All my friends threw a 'Going away to College' party for me, before I came here," said Dawn.

That just seemed to confuse him more. "And…?"

"And they gave me a bunch of gag gifts. Stuff they figured I'd need. Willow gave me a study planner, and a dozen different coloured highlighter pens, Xander gave me a set of lignum vitae stakes, and Faith…"

"What did Faith give you?" asked Jack.

"Faith gave me a box of condoms. Buffy looked like she wanted to kill her."

Jack had a slightly stunned look on his face. "Condoms?"

"Yeah," said Dawn. "I think we should open it."

* * *

Dawn's previous experience with sex could best be described by the word "quick." Once Dawn had consented, Antonio hadn't wasted any time getting into her pants, and while the experience had been enjoyable, it hadn't been the sort of "Wow!" that she had been hoping for.

Jack was different. Jack took his time. At first he didn't do any more than what they had already been doing, but slowly his hands and mouth moved to new places that he hadn't touched, or kissed, before, and their clothes slowly moved from their bodies, to being scattered on the floor around her bed. When they finally got to the part where Dawn placed the first condom onto him, she was more than ready for the "Wow!" and he didn't disappoint. It was still quick — Jack had the body of a seventeen year old, after all — but their foreplay had gotten her into a state that she _wanted_ quick. He also had the refractory period of a seventeen year old, so it didn't take long before she was putting a second condom onto him, and that time it seemed to go on, and on, and on, with her experiencing multiple "Wow!"s.

The afterplay was just as enjoyable, with Jack holding, and kissing, and cuddling her until she fell asleep in his arms.

* * *

Cassie had left the celebration with Jack and Dawn, but she and a couple of the other Slayers had gone for a quick patrol around town. Cassie sometimes wondered why they bothered: Cambridge had even fewer vampires than Colorado Springs, but she and the other girls still felt the need. They sometimes came across some purely human crime, but even that had declined after the first few weeks. There hadn't been any incidents quite like her encounter with the would-be rapist in Colorado, but the few muggers who had thought that Cambridge might be a fertile hunting ground for them and quickly been disabused of that notion, and moved elsewhere.

When Cassie had arrived back at their set, she heard the sounds of Dawn and Jack's activity in the other room. She was both pleased for her friends, and a little annoyed, as the noises they were making were _very_ distracting. The soundproofing in Fisher Hall was pretty good, but it couldn't make up for her Slayer hearing. She had taken to sleeping with the sound of rain, wind, and ocean surf playing softly to cover the noises coming from the surrounding students' rooms. Tonight, she had to turn the volume up.

* * *

They were at it again when she woke up the next morning, though the noise had died down by the time she was done with her shower, and had gotten dressed. She was contemplating knocking on Dawn's door, and asking if they were interested in coming to get something to eat with her, when there was a knock on the door to their set. Cassie wondered who it could be when she went to answer it. It was pretty much the _last_ person she expected to see.

"Sam! Hi! What are you doing here?" She stepped forward to give her a tight hug.

Samantha Carter hugged her back for several seconds before stepping back and smiling at her. "Hi Cassie. I'm in town to consult with Dr. Hawking about something, and thought I'd drop by and invite you to brunch. Can I come in?"

Cassie stepped back, and waved her in. "Yeah, sure! How long are you going to be here?"

"Just a couple of days," said Sam. "It's been a while since I've seen you, so I figured we could go collect Jack for brunch. I'll be done by the time you finish exams, so I thought I would offer you Air Force transportation back to Colorado, for your Christmas vacation."

"What? crammed in with a bunch of cargo in the back of a C-17?"

"Oh, I can do better than that," said Sam. "Believe me, it'll beat flying commercial."

"I guess I can do that," said Cassie.

"So why don't we go collect Jack, and then go get something to eat?" asked Sam.

"About that…" Cassie cocked her head and listened carefully for a bit. She could hear soft voices, and giggling coming from Dawn's room now, it sounded like she might be interrupting them in the middle of starting something up again, but after the way they'd kept her awake half the night, she didn't care about that. "…we don't have to go very far."

She went over and knocked on Dawn's door. She heard a quick scramble of movement, accompanied by mild cursing, and then the door opened, revealing an annoyed looking Dawn, wearing the shirt that Jack'd had on the night before.

"What is it?" she asked, before she noticed Sam. "Oh! Um, hello?" She looked a bit embarrassed, and Cassie was reasonably certain that Jack's shirt was _all_ that Dawn was wearing.

Cassie ignored Dawn's discomfiture. "Jack's got a visitor," she said. She could see him behind Dawn, wearing just his pants.

"Oh yeah?" he asked, coming to the door. "Who is—" He saw Sam. "Ah, oh, uh, hi Carter."

"Carter?" asked Dawn.

"Oh yeah," said Cassie. "Dawn Summers, meet Samantha Carter."

"Oh!" said Dawn. "The lady with the spaceship named after her!"

Cassie caught the look of disapproval that flashed across Sam's face, though she was quick to hide it. "Spaceship named after me?" she asked.

"Didn't Hammond tell you?" asked Jack. "Thor had us up for a visit, and he's named his latest ship 'Samantha Carter'."

"Oh, I'd heard about the visit," said Sam. "Thor beamed me up after he sent you back, but no one mentioned the name of the ship."

"Why don't you two finish getting dressed, and then come join me and Sam for breakfast? asked Cassie.

* * *

They found a table that was isolated enough from the other students that they could talk quietly, without risking being overheard. "So…Jack and Dawn?" asked Sam.

"You don't approve," said Cassie.

"It's not that," said Sam.

Cassie's eyebrows rose. "Oh?"

"It's not _just_ that," Sam conceded.

"Sam, I know that you and Jack — _General_ Jack — have got a thing for each other."

"No we don't!"

"The only people you're fooling are yourselves," said Cassie. "All your friends know, and all of your friends know that as long as he's your CO, nothing will come of it, but he won't be your CO for ever."

"But she's just a kid," said Sam.

"A kid who's been on the front lines of the supernatural fight for years now," said Cassie. "And probably the only person in the world whose life story is even weirder than Jack's."

"What do you mean?" asked Sam.

Cassie grimaced. She hadn't meant to let that bit of information out. "Sorry, that's classified, you don't need to know, but Dawn and Jack have got a lot in common. I think they're good for each other." She hoped that Sam would let the matter lie.

She seemed content to do so for now. They had nearly finished their breakfasts before Dawn and Jack joined them, and shortly after that, Sam had to leave for her meeting with Doctor Hawking.

* * *

Dawn and Jack spent most of the rest of the day studying together. Really. Jack insisted. He might have had the libido of a seventeen year old, but he had the discipline of a fifty year old Air Force colonel. But the colonel knew that one couldn't be expected to concentrate on one thing, to the exclusion of everything else, for too long without that concentration failing, so they took a couple of breaks for other, recreational, behaviour.

* * *

Sam showed up back at their set after supper the next day to collect Cassie. She'd already cancelled the flight she'd had booked for the next day, and had her bag packed, ready to go. Dawn, Jack, and Andrew were there to see her off. Everyone exchanged hugs, and Jack gave her some messages to pass on to his friends back in Colorado. He had been invited by Dawn to join her at Giles' place, near Westbury, for Christmas.

It wasn't far from Cassie's dorm, to the small hotel where Sam had been staying, so they walked there, with Cassie dragging her bag behind her. Sam had already packed, so it was just a matter of picking up her bag. Sam used the hotel's express checkout, so she wouldn't have to stop back at the desk on the way out, left her key card on the hotel room's dresser, and gave Cassie a large, bimetallic coin, about the size of a Canadian Toonie. She saw that it had the SGC crest on one side, and the Air Force crest on the other. "What's this?" she asked.

"It's an SGC challenge coin," said Sam. "General Hammond said you could have one. It will identify you as one of ours, to anyone else in the SGC. It has other uses too."

"Such as?" asked Cassie.

Sam pulled her cell phone from a pocket, and pressed a couple of buttons on it. "Grab your bag," she said, while waiting for an answer. Cassie did. "_Daedalus_, this is Colonel Carter," she said into her phone. "Two to beam up." A bright light flashed, just like when Thor had beamed her aboard his spaceship, and Cassie was elsewhere.

"It also acts as a homing beacon for our transporters," said Sam.

This time, instead of being in some alien spaceship, it was obvious when Cassie looked around that people had built this… whatever this was. The walls were covered with enough flat screen displays, though most of them were dark, to give Andrew wet dreams. People in uniform sat before instrument consoles. Some of them were monitoring the displays, while others had their consoles open, and were working inside them. The displays that were active were either showing incomprehensible graphics, or columns of text, and numbers. Even though the individual words were in English, and the numbers written with familiar numerals, they might as well have been Asgard runes, for all the sense that Cassie could make of them.

"Welcome aboard the _Daedalus_" said a man in fatigues bearing the eagle insignia of a full colonel.

"Thanks for the lift," said Sam. "Colonel Caldwell, this is Cassie Fraiser. Cassie, this is Colonel Caldwell, commanding officer of our newest starship, the _USS Daedalus_."

"Miss Fraiser, it's an honour to meet you. I was a patient of your mother's, more than once. We all miss her."

"Thank you Colonel," said Cassie.

"Airman," said Colonel Caldwell, to one of the other people in the room, "take Colonel Carter's, and Miss Fraiser's bags, and stow them. We won't be in beaming range of Colorado for another hour," he explained to Cassie. "We like to avoid trying to beam people through thousands of miles of rock, when we can," he added with a grin He turned his attention back to Sam. "Colonel, why don't you give our guest a bit of a tour."

"Certainly, Colonel," said Sam. "This way, Cassie." She waved toward a hatch at one end of the room.

The hatch led them into a corridor, that Cassie thought wouldn't look out of place inside a submarine. It was painted gray, and there were bulkheads, with more hatches, spaced every twenty feet along it. The hatches were lighter weight than what she'd seen in movie submarines, but she was sure that they were all air-tight.

The first place Sam took her was the mess hall. That's because it was one of the few rooms on the ship that had a large window through which Cassie could look out, and see that she really was in a spaceship. The Earth was dark beneath them, and Cassie could see the lights of cities, shining like stars. "Where are we?" she asked.

Sam pointed to a flat screen display, beside the window, showing a physical map of the Earth, indicating where it was day, and night, and with a bright yellow wavy line drawn across it. A red arrow on the line, pointing south-east was moving slowly across a darkened Italy. "That shows our current position, and projected ground track. As you can see, we're just about to head out across the Mediterranean Sea. We'll be in the dark for another half hour. Then you'll be able to watch the sun rise over Australia."

The window in the mess hall was almost the most interesting thing that Sam could show Cassie. The rest of the ship consisted of corridors like the first one she'd been in, and a lot of small rooms packed with all sorts of incomprehensible equipment. Large sections of the ship were off limits — either because they were currently opened up to the vacuum of space, or because she lacked the necessary clearance. Cassie was amazed that she had the clearance necessary to be on board at all, but it seemed that General Hammond wanted to open up some more lines of communication between Homeworld Security, and the Council, and had decided to start with her, since she already had limited SGC clearance.

The one place that Sam showed her that was more interesting than the window in the mess hall, was a compartment in Engineering. Here she finally saw clear evidence of alien technology. Instead of human built displays showing English script, there were holographic displays showing Asgard runes, and in the middle of them all was a short gray Asgard. Sam introduced it to her as Hermiod, who was overseeing the installation of several pieces of Asgard technology on the ship, from the transporters, to the shields, and hyperdrive, which were still under construction.

Hermiod blinked, and gave her a short bow. "Slayer Cassandra, it is an honour to meet you." Several of the people in the compartment gave her strange looks. Sam gave them a quelling look, and they quickly went back to their work.

Cassie bowed back to Hermiod. "The honour is mine," she said, which seemed to please it. It was hard to tell, with an Asgard.

Sam handed over a tablet computer to Hermiod. "Dr. Hawking was able to help me with the calculations for interfacing the artificial gravity systems with the inertial dampers. I only wish I'd been able to tell him that we were working with real systems, not just theoretical models."

Hermiod took the tablet from her, and quickly scrolled through the equations it displayed. It nodded its head. "Yes… This is correct. Your species would benefit, if it spent less time hiding information from itself."

"The Asgard keep telling us that we aren't ready to know all that you _could_ tell us, if you wanted to," said Sam. "Some of us are less ready than others."

"Anyone with the intelligence necessary to formulate these equations…" Hermiod waved the tablet at her. "…is ready to be told the truth."

"For what it's worth, I agree with you," said Sam. "But it wasn't my decision to make."

* * *

They made it back to the mess hall just in time to see the sun rise over the mountains of eastern Australia, and then flew out over the vast blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean. They reached the limit of their southern excursion as they passed over New Zealand, and then slowly started to curve northward again.

A klaxon blared, and Cassie heard Colonel Caldwell's voice come over the PA system. "All hands brace for acceleration!" he warned. "Acceleration to commence in thirty seconds!"

Sam grabbed a hand-hold on the wall, and indicated for Cassie to do the same. "Once we get the issue with the inertial dampers worked out, we won't have this problem, but for now, everyone has to hold on, even for minor course corrections."

Someone gave a ten second countdown, and then Cassie felt the deck twist and tilt under her. Her view out the window showed that the _Daedalus_ was banking into the acceleration to keep "down" more or less in the direction of the floor. It started to feel like the ship was just climbing a steep hill, and no longer in danger of rolling over as it did so.

"End of acceleration in ten seconds, nine… eight… seven…" The countdown continued down to zero, and the apparent tilt in the ship's deck disappeared so suddenly that Cassie had to catch herself from falling.

Sam grinned at her. "First time, end of acceleration causes nearly as many injuries as the start of acceleration. Once we get the dampers properly tuned, though, the ship should be able to do loops, and barrel rolls without anyone who doesn't have a window even noticing."

"Why the course change?" asked Cassie.

"The old course was set to take the ship over England, to pick us up," said Sam. She pointed at the map display, and Cassie could see that the yellow line had moved on it. "This new course will put us over Colorado, in about twenty minutes."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, they were back on what Cassie now knew was the bridge of the _Daedalus_, standing in a group with half a dozen other people. The airman had retrieved her, and Sam's bags from wherever he had stowed them, and given them back to them.

"Standby for transport to the SGC," said a lieutenant at one of the bridge consoles, "in three… two… one…" The transporter light flashed and Cassie, and everyone with her, found herself in another room. This one painted with the drab colours of the SGC, with its air having the familiar underground scent of people and machinery.

"See," said Sam. "Told you it beats flying commercial."


	25. Part XXV

Part XXV

* * *

Note: Some dialog in this chapter is taken from the _Stargate SG-1_ episode "Möbius".

* * *

Cassie enjoyed her Christmas vacation in Colorado. She enjoyed seeing her friends from school who hadn't left town or who had come home themselves for the holidays. She pretended to be completely innocent when Daniel started translating the book that she'd gotten a copy of from the Council library — written in Egyptian hieroglyphics — when he discovered was really ancient Egyptian erotic poetry. She did tell him that it had been Dawn that recommended it to her. She did tell General Jack that she'd gotten Jack's advice for what to get him for Christmas. The funniest thing about it was that when she'd emailed General Jack a month ago for advice on what to get Jack, he'd said exactly the same thing. As always the trickiest present had been the one for Sam. She had finally settled on a first edition copy of _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance._

Once the Christmas vacation was done, she had to take a commercial flight back to England, but she did manage to upgrade to business class, since she hadn't had to spend any money on her flight back to the States. It still wasn't as nice as her Air Force flight home had been.

She brought back presents for Jack — who had spent Christmas with Dawn at Giles' place in Westbury — from most of the members of SG-1. The only one who hadn't given her something to take to him was General Jack. He said that he was sending Jack his present through Air Force channels, since it was something that Cassie wouldn't be able to carry on a commercial flight. That got Cassie really curious about what it could be. She made Jack promise to call her when it was delivered, so she could be there when he opened whatever it was.

Jack took delivery of a heavy package from an Air Force courier a couple of days later. He called Cassie and Dawn so that they could join him and Andrew in their set before he opened it. Inside the plain brown cardboard box was something heavy, wrapped in brightly coloured _Simpsons_ Christmas wrapping paper; and a card in an envelope. The card had a picture of Homer in a Santa suit, and the message written inside just said that Jack should be able to figure out the combination.

Jack ripped the paper away from his present, and found it was covering a metal box, about one foot on a side, and six inches deep, with a combination lock on it.

He tried out various combinations that he figured Jack might have picked for him, ranging from his old military service number from the days before the Air Force had switched over to using social security numbers, to the PIN for Jack's ATM card. He hit on the right one when he tried the combination from his old SGC locker.

He opened the lid of the box, and was shocked by what was packed, tightly nestled in dense foam, inside it.

"Is that—?" asked Cassie.

"Yes it is," said Jack.

"What is it?" asked Dawn.

"It's a zat," said Jack.

"What's a zat?" asked Andrew.

Jack pulled the goa'uld weapon from the box, and pressed the stud to activate it. It sprang open in his hand. "It's short for 'zat'nik'tel'."

"And that is helpful in a way that's not," said Dawn.

"It's an alien weapon, kinda like a phaser," said Cassie.

"For real?" asked Andrew. "That is so cool!"

"Getting shot once with one is kinda like being hit by a taser," said Jack. "Getting shot a second time, right after that, will kill most people."

"I wonder what it will do to a vamp, or some other demon," said Dawn.

"I've been wondering that, ever since I found out that such things existed," said Jack. "Maybe now, I'll get a chance to find out."

"Don't forget to take a stake along too, just in case it doesn't work."

Classes for the Lent Term at Cambridge got underway the next week. Cassie wondered a bit about the strange English term names. Why couldn't they just call it the Winter Term?

While classes went along pretty much as expected, there was a bit of an annoying change in her living arrangements. Jack was spending a lot of nights in Dawn's room … and she was spending a lot of nights in his. Cassie much preferred the nights that Dawn spent with Jack, since she didn't have to overhear what they were doing together on those nights. Enhanced hearing could be a bitch sometimes, and there was only so much that her environmental recordings could cover up. She was just about ready to give up, and suggest that she and Jack should just switch rooms, so she could share a set with Andrew, and Jack could move in with Dawn.

* * *

Dawn rolled over in her bed as she awoke, reaching for Jack. Her arm only met with empty space. She lay in her bed for a moment, wondering where he had gotten to. He hadn't mentioned anything last night about having to get up early this morning. She opened her eyes.

Dawn blinked. This wasn't her room … but it was. It was like waking from one of those really realistic dreams, where it took you a little while to figure out what was real, and what was the dream. She heard pounding on her door, and realized that it was what had waked her.

"Dawn! Get up! You're going to be late for class!"

Dawn knew that voice. It was a voice she hadn't heard for years. It was a voice that _couldn't_ be real, but one that she also remembered belonged to her roommate. She sat up in her bed. "I'm awake!" she said.

The door of her room opened, and Amanda looked in at her. "You better get moving," she said. "You've got class in twenty minutes."

Dawn blinked. Amanda was her roommate here at Oxford. They had been friends since before the destruction of Sunnydale. She remembered Amanda on the bus out of Sunnydale, and she remembered her grief from hearing what had happened to her friend … She remembered Amanda living … and she remembered Amanda dying. She remembered being a student at Cambridge University with her roommate Cassie, and her new boyfriend Jack … and she remembered attending Oxford with her friend Amanda, and currently not having a boyfriend.

"I'm not going to class today," she said.

Dawn got out of bed, and went to the laptop computer on her desk. She logged into the Council's web site. It took a couple of attempts to remember the right password. The first one she tried was the one that worked when she was in Cambridge. She went to the database of Slayers and typed "Cassandra Fraiser" into the search form, and clicked on the "Search" button. She got zero hits. She tried both "Fraiser" and "Cassandra" with the same result. She tried searching for Slayers from Colorado, and got one she recognized from Denver, but she wasn't Cassie. She tried a few other names that she remembered, and got the expected results for nearly all of them. She was saddened to learn that some of the Slayers that she remembered from the world with Cassie and Jack had been killed by the Bringers, while they were still Potentials. Finding living Slayers in this world who had died as Potentials in the other world didn't really balance the scales in her mind. Sometimes two negatives didn't make a positive. Sometimes they made things even more negative.

* * *

Dawn looked around at the faces on the screens in the conference room of the Oxford chapter of the Anacreontic Society. Xander and Anya were sitting together on one of the screens, and she felt a tightness in her chest. She could remember Anya's death … she could remember Xander's grief. This was going to be harder than she thought. She also couldn't help noticing that Faith was missing.

"You called this meeting, Dawn" said Giles, "What's going on?"

"I wish I knew," said Dawn. "I just know it's something weird. I've suddenly got two sets of memories for the last couple of years."

"What do you mean?" asked Buffy.

"I mean that I have two different sets of memories for how the last couple of years have gone," said Dawn. "Ever since the destruction of Sunnydale … I remember things going differently."

"How differently?" asked Anya.

Dawn closed her eyes. She _really_ didn't want to go into that right now … especially with Anya. "Let's just say that the Slayer Memorial monument has got some different names on it … there's the same number of names, they're just different."

"What different names?" asked Anya.

"I'd really rather not say," said Dawn, "but in my other memories, Amanda isn't my roommate. Giles, did you get anywhere tracking down those names I gave you?"

"I have found no record of anyone named 'Cassandra Fraiser,' or a 'Jonathan O'Neill' under twenty years old. There is a retired Air Force Colonel with that name, but he is over fifty."

Dawn nodded. "That makes sense. What about the other names I gave you?"

"Doctor Janet Fraiser is the chief of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins University Hospital, in Baltimore," said Giles. "She has never been in the Air Force. Neither has Samantha Carter; she's working with NASA's Department of Aerospace Research. Daniel Jackson is teaching English as a Second Language classes in Chicago. He'd had a promising career as a researcher in archaeology — we even considered trying to recruit him — but some of his theories were too outlandish."

"Theories about aliens visiting Earth in the past?" asked Dawn.

"Yes," said Giles. "How did you know?"

"In my other set of memories, I've met an alien," said Dawn. "And Daniel Jackson, and those other people were instrumental in our making first contact with them."

Vi sat on a boat in the slip next to the one belonging to a retired Air Force colonel, pretending to be doing nothing but sun-bathing. Jack O'Neill had been the only one of the three names that Dawn had identified as being from some sort of elite alien fighting team in some other reality that they had been able to locate. Dr. Daniel Jackson had left his small apartment in Chicago the day before the Council team had turned up to look for him there, and Dr. Samantha Carter wasn't home either.

At first it had seemed that O'Neill had vanished too, but it had turned out that he'd just been out on his boat. Vi didn't really know what to make of this situation. Dawn suddenly claiming to have two sets of memories of the last few years wasn't the weirdest thing that had ever happened to many of them. Her knowledge of Drs. Jackson and Carter, even if it didn't match these people exactly, was close enough to warrant further investigation. Them both vanishing from their known day jobs at the same time made it even more likely that something was going on, so they had inserted a Slayer team into the marina where O'Neill kept his boat, to keep an eye on him.

They had done so by the simple expedient of borrowing the boat that Kennedy's family kept in Fort Lauderdale, and parking it next to O'Neill's boat with Vi and a couple of other Slayers aboard pretending to be a bunch of college students taking a bit of a vacation. The fact that they all _were_ college students, and were just as likely to be seen reading textbooks as the current best-seller while sunning on the boat's deck didn't hurt in establishing their covers. Another boat, this one rented from a local charter agency, with their Watcher and Witch support aboard, was parked a couple of docks over. With the two element team they didn't have to be completely obvious that they were watching O'Neill's boat. The Slayers could sail out of the marina on days when O'Neill was staying at the dock, or they could stay at the dock on the days when O'Neill had a charter, while the other boat took up the following duties. It would take a particularly paranoid person to pick up that wherever he went, there was always at least one of a pair of boats that had him in sight. (Though Dawn had warned them that the other Jack O'Neill, from her other set of memories, was the sort of man who would pick up on that sort of thing.)

Jack (as he'd told them to call him) was a pleasant enough guy, though he seemed to be a bit bitter. The Council's research into his background had shown that he'd gotten divorced and left the Air Force shortly after the death of his son, and it seemed that he had never really recovered from it.

So far this assignment had been pretty boring, with the biggest development being in Vi's tan. She spent a lot of time sitting out on the front deck of their boat, reading books, or pretending to nap in the sun, with her eyes covered by a big set of sunglasses that let her keep them open, and watching. Jack kept to himself most of the time when he didn't have a charter. At the moment he was doing some work on his engine, which seemed to involve a lot of swearing. Vi was considering ending her pretend nap, and offering to help. She didn't know anything about boat motors, but she could pass him tools, and provide an extra pair of hands to hold things steady.

That plan was nixed when she spotted Drs. Jackson and Carter making their way down the dock, looking at slip-numbers. They went past her, and stopped at O'Neill's boat, just in time for him to bark his knuckles when his wrench slipped.

"Ow! Damn!" he swore, and shook his hand. He looked up and noticed his visitors. "You folks lookin' for a little tour?" he asked.

"Jack O'Neill?" asked Dr. Jackson.

Jack eyed them suspiciously. "Yeah."

"Uh, I'm Daniel Jackson; this is Samantha Carter."

"You two a couple?" asked Jack.

"No, no, no, we just, we just met," said Jackson.

"What do you want?" asked Jack.

"Well uh, we were recently approached by the military about a matter of, um, national security," said Dr. Carter.

Jack went back to work on his engine. "Don't care."

"This is really important," said Dr. Jackson. "All we're asking is a little bit of your time."

"A hundred and fifty bucks an hour to rent the boat," said Jack.

"We don't wanna go anywhere," said Dr. Jackson.

"It's your money," said Jack.

Carter and Jackson exchanged a look, and he reached for his back pocket. "I think I've got fifty bucks."

"Me too," said Dr. Carter. "So, can we have forty minutes of your time?" She looked around, and saw Vi, but she was far enough away that she wouldn't expect that Vi would be able to overhear their conversation, and she was doing a very good impression of a sleeping girl, anyway. She treated it as a meditation exercise.

Vi had a hard time keeping up that impression as she listened in on Jackson and Carter's rather one sided conversation, starting right from the beginning, when she kept her face completely blank when O'Neill told them that they had to put on life jackets … even though the boat wasn't leaving the dock, and he wasn't wearing one himself. Vi knew that he did it just to annoy them, and maybe make them go away.

She listened as Drs. Jackson and Carter told O'Neill about the discovery of a five thousand year old video camera in a tomb in Egypt, and described what was recorded on the tape it contained. Their story confirmed some of the details of what Dawn had told them about the other timeline, but she had a hard time imagining that this pair of dorky scientists could be part of some elite military team.

Jack didn't really say much, just giving occasional grunts, or making some sarcastic comments to show that he wasn't completely ignoring them while he puttered about on his boat.

Jackson finished describing what was on the tape. "So ultimately what we have to do is this: we have to find the Stargate and then get hold of this time travel device."

"Locate this alien named Teal'c," added Carter. Vi remembered that Dawn had mentioned him, as one of the Colorado Springs Slayer's friends.

"Right," said Jackson. "Get Teal'c first, then go back in time to change the past, fix the future."

Jack didn't seem to be paying any attention to him, choosing to work on one of his fishing poles, instead. "Are you listening?" asked Jackson.

"I was trying not to," said Jack.

"Yeah, I suppose it does sound a little crazy," said Jackson.

"Really? Which part?" asked Jack. "I'd have to say: the moment I let you on board."

Vi hoped that no one noticed her lips twitch.

"You don't have to believe us," said Carter. "All we ask is that you watch the tape and decide for yourself."

"You know, I have decided." Jack looked at his watch. "And hey look, your time's up!"

"Aren't you in the least bit intrigued that there might be something else out there, somewhere?" asked Jackson. "Something more than this!"

Jack stared at them for a few seconds. "No."

"We're supposed to be a team," said Jackson. "We saved the world."

"Several times," said Carter.

Jack put on an accent that sounded like it came straight out of _Fargo._ "Yeah. Okay. Sure. I'll buy that. Uh huh. The three of us. The world, we save it, right? Okay."

"I can't believe I wasted my frequent flyer miles on this," Carter told Jackson.

"Sorry to bother you," said Jackson to Jack.

"Not a problem," said Jack.

Carter and Jackson stood up, and started to remove their life jackets, but Jack wouldn't let them take them off until they were back on the dock. They threw the jackets back down into Jack's boat, and stalked angrily away.

"No worries, eh?" Jack called after them, but his face went thoughtful as soon as they were out of sight. He also gave Vi a good look, as if he suspected that she wasn't really sleeping, but she stayed lying still in the sun, breathing evenly, and not seeming to take any notice of anything going on around her, even after he went below deck on his boat. She waited nearly half a hour, thinking over everything she had learned before she pretended to wake up, stretched, and went back into the cabin of their boat to call Dawn.

* * *

"According to Carter and Jackson, a video tape from the lot of them was found in that tomb that was just unearthed in Egypt," said Vi. "The other thems went back in time, and their interference made this new world. Our Jackson and Carter were trying to enlist O'Neill's help to try to restore the original time line."

"But what's to say which time line is the 'right' one?" asked Giles. "Dawn, you have memories of both."

"Yeah," said Dawn. "And for Carter, Jackson, and O'Neill, I can see the attraction of the other timeline. In it, they are all highly respected in their fields. From the hints I've heard, the other Samantha Carter is in the running for at least three Nobel Prizes, once her work is declassified. If she wants to talk with him, Stephen Hawking clears time in his schedule to make room for her. Rumour has it that General O'Neill's name is the only one on the short list to take over the department that deals with aliens, and also with our kind of weirdness."

"Not sure how I feel about that," said Buffy. "Ever since Kinsey got elected President—"

"Best thing about the other universe," said Dawn. "No President Kinsey! First time I met Jack and Cassie, they were laughing about how _Vice_ President Kinsey had gotten his comeuppance, and been forced to resign. In the other universe we have a much better relationship with the American government. President Hayes isn't the sort of fellow who would want to burn Willow at the stake."

"President Hayes?" asked Giles.

"Yeah, he's the Interior Secretary now, but in my other memories, he's President, and seems to be a decent guy."

"Still, if we, or the Air Force, _do_ manage to 'fix' whatever they think went wrong, what happens to us?" asked Willow. "Even if there are versions of us in the other world, they _aren't_ us. Should we be doing anything to help them, or stop them, or what?"

"I don't know," said Dawn. "I don't even have any ideas about what we _can_ do."


End file.
